Convergent CDR3 homology amongst Spike-specific antibody responses in convalescent COVID-19 subjects receiving the BNT162b2 vaccine.

ABSTRACT

Convalescent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) subjects who receive BNT162b2 develop robust antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2. However, our understanding of the clonal B cell response pre- and post-vaccination in such individuals is limited. Here we characterized B cell phenotypes and the BCR repertoire after BNT162b2 immunization in two convalescent COVID-19 subjects. BNT162b2 stimulated many B cell clones that were under-represented during SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, the vaccine generated B cell clusters with >65% similarity in CDR3 VH and VL region consensus sequences both within and between subjects. This result suggests that the CDR3 region plays a dominant role adjacent to heavy and light chain V/J pairing in the recognition of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Antigen-specific B cell populations with homology to published SARS-CoV-2 antibody sequences from the CoV-AbDab database were observed in both subjects. These results point towards the development of convergent antibody responses against the virus in different individuals.