Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2022 Jan 25;185(6):1025–1040.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.01.018

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© 2022 The Authors

Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

PMC Copyright notice

Localization of SARS-CoV-2 proteins and vaccine mRNA in LNs

(A) Representative LN GC after mRNA vaccination showing hematoxylin and eosin staining (upper left), four-color Codex staining (lower left), in situ hybridization of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-specific probe (upper right [lower magnification] and middle right [greater magnification]), and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining for spike antigen (lower right). Vaccine mRNA probe hybridization was visualized by colorimetric development with Fast Red chromogen, and positive IHC staining for spike antigen was visualized as granular brown color from 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (DAB) reagent.

(B) Representative in situ hybridization of an RNAScope control probe (left panels) and SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-specific probe (middle panels) within ipsilateral axillary core needle LN biopsies of female patients 7–60 days after second mRNA-1273 or BNT162b2 dose. Probe hybridization is indicated by red chromogen spots. IHC signal for spike antigen (right panels) is detected as granular brown staining.

(C) Quantification of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-specific probe-staining GCs in vaccinated LN biopsies.

(D) Quantification of positive SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine-specific probe spots per GC in vaccinee LNs. Error bars represent mean ± SEM.

(E) Spike-protein-positive GC quantification from IHC staining of vaccinee LNs.

(F) IHC staining for spike (lower right panel) and nucleocapsid (upper panels and lower left panel) antigens in representative sections of COVID-19 patient peribronchial LNs. Nucleocapsid detection in primary (upper right panel) and secondary (upper left panel) LN follicles.

(G) Due to the low frequency of detection of spike antigen in COVID-19 patient LNs, quantification is presented as the number of patients with positive staining in their LN specimens.

(H) Quantification of the number of COVID-19 patients with LN follicles positive for nucleocapsid IHC staining.

(I) Number and percentage of nucleocapsid-positive follicles by IHC in COVID-19 patient LNs. Error bars represent mean ± SEM.

(J) Spike concentration measured in plasma samples collected before and at several time points after BNT162b2 vaccination, with the red dotted line indicating the cutoff for positive.

(K) Spike concentrations were measured in plasma samples collected from BNT162b2 vaccinees on D0 (spike negative) or D28 (spike positive) spiked with different concentrations of recombinant spike protein. Black dotted line = cutoff for positive.

(L) Spike concentration measured in plasma samples collected from BNT162b2 vaccinees on D0, D21, D22/23, and D28 mixed with the same plasma sample collected from one BNT162b2 vaccinee on D1 (spike positive). Black dotted line = cutoff for positive.