Antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 variants induced by four different SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in health care workers in the Netherlands: A prospective cohort study

by Marit J. van Gils, Ayesha Lavell, Karlijn van der Straten, Brent Appelman, Ilja Bontjer, Meliawati Poniman, Judith A. Burger, Melissa Oomen, Joey H. Bouhuijs, Lonneke A. van Vught, Marleen A. Slim, Michiel Schinkel, Elke Wynberg, Hugo D. G. van Willigen, Marloes Grobben, Khadija Tejjani, Jacqueline van Rijswijk, Jonne L. Snitselaar, Tom G. Caniels, Amsterdam UMC COVID-19 S3/HCW study group , Alexander P. J. Vlaar, Maria Prins, Menno D. de Jong, Godelieve J. de Bree, Jonne J. Sikkens, Marije K. Bomers, Rogier W. Sanders

Emerging and future SARS-CoV-2 variants may jeopardize the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. Therefore, it is important to know how the different vaccines perform against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants.

In a prospective cohort of 165 SARS-CoV-2 naive health care workers in the Netherlands, vaccinated with either one of four vaccines (BNT162b2, mRNA-1273, AZD1222 or Ad26.COV2.S), we performed a head-to-head comparison of the ability of sera to recognize and neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs; Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron). Repeated serum sampling was performed 5 times during a year (from January 2021 till January 2022), including before and after booster vaccination with BNT162b2. Four weeks after completing the initial vaccination series, SARS-CoV-2 wild-type neutralizing antibody titers were highest in recipients of mRNA-1273, followed by recipients of BNT162b2 (geometric mean titers (GMT) of 358 [95% CI 231–556] and 214 [95% CI 153–299], respectively; p<0.05), and substantially lower in those vaccinated with the adenovirus vector-based vaccines AZD1222 and Ad26.COV2.S (GMT of 18 [95% CI 11–30] and 14 [95% CI 8–25] IU/ml, respectively; p<0.001). VOCs neutralization was reduced in all vaccine groups, with the greatest reduction in neutralization GMT observed against the Omicron variant (fold change 0.03 [95% CI 0.02–0.04], p<0.001). The booster BNT162b2 vaccination increased neutralizing antibody titers for all groups with substantial improvement against the VOCs including the Omicron variant. We used linear regression and linear mixed model analysis. All results were adjusted for possible confounding of age and sex. Study limitations include the lack of cellular immunity data.

Overall, this study shows that the mRNA vaccines appear superior to adenovirus vector-based vaccines in inducing neutralizing antibodies against VOCs four weeks after initial vaccination and after booster vaccination, which implies the use of mRNA vaccines for both initial and booster vaccination.