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 Sep 1:14:1230974.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1230974. eCollection 2023.

Natural infection versus hybrid (natural and vaccination) humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2: a comparative paired analysis

Laila AbdelWareth  1   2 , Farida Alhousani  3 , Rowan Abuyadek  3   4 , James Donnelly  1 , Andrea Leinberger-Jabari  5 , Shereen Atef  1   6 , Rami H Al-Rifai  7
Affiliations

Natural infection versus hybrid (natural and vaccination) humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2: a comparative paired analysis

Laila AbdelWareth et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Objectives: There is substantial immunological evidence that vaccination following natural infection increases protection. We compare the humoral immune response developed in initially seropositive individuals (naturally infected) to humoral hybrid immune response (developed after infection and vaccination) in the same population group after one year.

Methods: The study included 197 male individuals who were naturally infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then vaccinated with SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Trimeric spike, nucleocapsid, and ACE2-RBD blocking antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 were measured. Nasal swabs were collected for SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing. Information on vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 and PCR verified infection was retrieved from official databases (Abu Dhabi Health Data Services- SP LLC. ("Malaffi"), including number of vaccine doses received, date of vaccination, and type of the received vaccine.

Results: All the study population were tested PCR-Negative at the time of sample collection. Our results showed that there was a significant rise in the mean (SD) and median (IQR) titers of trimeric spike, nucleocapsid and ACE2-RBD blocking antibodies in the post-vaccination stage. The mean (± SD) and median (IQR) concentration of the anti-S antibody rose by 3.3-fold (+230% ± 197% SD) and 2.8-fold (+185%, 220-390%, p<0.001), respectively. There was an observed positive dose-response relationship between number of the received vaccine doses and having higher proportion of study participants with higher than median concentration in the difference between the measured anti-S and ACE2-RBD blocking antibodies in the post-vaccination compared to pre-vaccination.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccination post natural infection elicits a robust immunological response with an impressive rise of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, especially the ACE2-RBD blocking antibodies.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; hybrid immunity; neutralizing antibodies; spike antibodies; vaccination.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Distribution of the measured three classes of antibodies in the pre-vaccination and post-vaccination stage. Correlation coefficient (r) assesses the strength of correlation between same antibody class in the two stages (Spearman correlation test). * outlier.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Correlation between the measured three antibody classes during the natural infection (left figure) and the post-vaccination (right figure) stage (Spearman correlation).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Correlation between the difference in level of the measured three antibody classes (Spearman correlation).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Watson OJ, Barnsley G, Toor J, Hogan AB, Winskill P, Ghani AC. Global impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination: a mathematical modelling study. Lancet Infect Dis (2022) 22(9):1293–302. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(22)00320-6 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rahmani K, Shavaleh R, Forouhi M, Disfani HF, Kamandi M, Oskooi RK, et al. The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in reducing the incidence, hospitalization, and mortality from COVID-19: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Front Public Health (2022) 10:873596. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.873596 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Huang YZ, Kuan CC. Vaccination to reduce severe COVID-19 and mortality in COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci (2022) 26(5):1770–6. doi: 10.26355/eurrev_202203_28248 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Word Health Organization (WHO) . Side effects of COVID-19 vaccines . Available at: https://www.who.int/newsroom/feature-stories/detail/side-effects-of-covi....
    1. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . Interim clinical considerations for use of COVID-19 vaccines currently approved or authorized in the unitedState . Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/clinical-considerations/interim-co....

Publication types