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Antigen-specific CD4+ T cells exhibit distinct transcriptional phenotypes in the lymph node and blood following vaccination in humans.

Philip A MuddNicholas BorcherdingWooseob KimMichael QuinnFangjie HanJulian Q ZhouAlexandria SturtzAaron SchmitzTingting LeiStefan A SchattgenMichael KlebertTeresa SuessenWilliam MiddletonCharles GossChang LiuJeremy Chase CrawfordPaul Glyndwr ThomasSharlene TeefeyRachel PrestiJane O'HalloranJackson S TurnerAli H Ellebedy
Published in: Research square (2023)
SARS-CoV-2 infection and mRNA vaccination induce robust CD4 + T cell responses that are critical for the development of protective immunity. Here, we evaluated spike-specific CD4 + T cells in the blood and draining lymph node (dLN) of human subjects following BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination using single-cell transcriptomics. We analyze multiple spike-specific CD4 + T cell clonotypes, including novel clonotypes we define here using Trex, a new deep learning-based reverse epitope mapping method integrating single-cell T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing and transcriptomics to predict antigen-specificity. Human dLN spike-specific T follicular helper cells (T FH ) exhibited distinct phenotypes, including germinal center (GC)-T FH and IL-10 + T FH , that varied over time during the GC response. Paired TCR clonotype analysis revealed tissue-specific segregation of circulating and dLN clonotypes, despite numerous spike-specific clonotypes in each compartment. Analysis of a separate SARS-CoV-2 infection cohort revealed circulating spike-specific CD4 + T cell profiles distinct from those found following BNT162b2 vaccination. Our findings provide an atlas of human antigen-specific CD4 + T cell transcriptional phenotypes in the dLN and blood following vaccination or infection.
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