Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar;131(3):128-132.
doi: 10.1111/apm.13294. Epub 2023 Jan 29.

SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences circulate in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination

Jose Alfredo Samaniego Castruita  1 , Uffe Vest Schneider  1 , Sarah Mollerup  1 , Thomas Daell Leineweber  1 , Nina Weis  2   3 , Jens Bukh  2   4 , Martin Schou Pedersen  1   5 , Henrik Westh  1   3
Affiliations

SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences circulate in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination

Jose Alfredo Samaniego Castruita et al. APMIS. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

In Denmark, vaccination against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been with the Pfizer-BioNTech (BTN162b2) or the Moderna (mRNA-1273) mRNA vaccines. Patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection followed in our clinic received mRNA vaccinations according to the Danish roll-out vaccination plan. To monitor HCV infection, RNA was extracted from patient plasma and RNA sequencing was performed on the Illumina platform. In 10 of 108 HCV patient samples, full-length or traces of SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences were found in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination. Detection of mRNA vaccine sequences in blood after vaccination adds important knowledge regarding this technology and should lead to further research into the design of lipid-nanoparticles and the half-life of these and mRNA vaccines in humans.

Keywords: Hepatitis C virus; SARS-CoV-2; blood; mRNA; vaccine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mapping of trimmed and filtered reads to the coding regions of the spike protein of the Moderna mRNA vaccine or Pfizer BioNTech vaccine. Each colored plot is a single sample. The right‐hand column shows the day postvaccination, the vaccine given and found in blood and if sample was drawn after 1. vaccination or revaccination. The two bottom samples are from the same patient after first and second vaccination with the Moderna vaccine.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Nance KD, Meier JL. Modifications in an emergency: the role of N1‐Methylpseudouridine in COVID‐19 vaccines. ACS Cent Sci. 2021;7:748–56. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schoenmaker L, Witzigmann D, Kulkarni JA, Verbeke R, Kersten G, Jiskoot W, et al. mRNA‐lipid nanoparticle COVID‐19 vaccines: structure and stability. Int J Pharm. 2021;601:120586. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tombácz I, Laczkó D, Shahnawaz H, Muramatsu H, Natesan A, Yadegari A, et al. Highly efficient CD4+ T cell targeting and genetic recombination using engineered CD4+ cell‐homing mRNA‐LNP. Mol Ther. 2021;29(11):3293–304. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wayment‐Steele HK, Kim DS, Choe CA, Nicol JJ, Wellington‐Oguri R, Watkins AM, et al. Theoretical basis for stabilizing messenger RNA through secondary structure design. Nucleic Acids Res. 2021;49(18):10604–17. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lindsay KE, Bhosle SM, Zurla C, Beyersdorf J, Rogers KA, Vanover D, et al. Visualization of early events in mRNA vaccine delivery in non‐human primates via PET‐CT and near‐infrared imaging. Nat Biomed Eng. 2019;3:371–80. - PubMed