mTOR inhibitors improve both humoral and cellular response to SARS-CoV-2 messenger RNA BNT16b2 vaccine in kidney transplant recipients

Abstract

Kidney transplant recipients (KTRs) have been considered as patients at higher risk of SARS-CoV-2-related disease severity, thus COVID-19 vaccination was highly recommended. However, possible interferences of different immunosuppression with development of both humoral and T cell–mediated immune response to COVID-19 vaccination have not been determined. Here we evaluated the association between mTOR-inhibitors (mTOR-I) and immune response to mRNA BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine in KTR. To this aim 132 consecutive KTR vaccinated against COVID-19 in the early 2021 were enrolled, and humoral and T cell–mediated immune response were assessed after 4–5 weeks. Patients treated with mTOR-I showed significantly higher anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG titer (p =.003) and higher percentages of anti-SARS-CoV-2 S1/RBD Ig (p =.024), than those without. Moreover, SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell–derived IFNγ release was significantly increased in patients treated with mTOR-I (p