Strong immunogenicity of heterologous prime-boost immunizations with the experimental vaccine GRAd-COV2 and BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-nCOV19

Agrati, C.; Capone, S.; Castilletti, C.; Cimini, E.; Matusali, G.; Meschi, S.; Tartaglia, E.; Camerini, R.; Lanini, S.; Milleri, S.; Colloca, S.; Vitelli, A.; Folgori, A.

Here we report on the humoral and cellular immune response in eight volunteers who autonomously chose to adhere to the Italian national COVID-19 vaccination campaign more than 3 months after receiving a single administration GRAd-COV2 vaccine candidate in the context of the phase 1 clinical trial. We observed a clear boost of both binding/neutralizing antibodies as well as T cell responses upon receipt of the heterologous BNT162b2 or ChAdOx1-nCOV19 vaccines. These results, despite the limitation of the small sample size, support the concept that a single-dose of an adenoviral vaccine may represent an ideal tool to effectively prime a balanced immune response, which can be boosted to high levels by a single dose of a different vaccine platform.