Fig 1.
Heat map identifying amino acid motifs preferentially recognized by IgG from vaccinated subjects.
Amino acid motifs were identified among the peptides immunoprecipitated by IgG from vaccine recipients using IMUNE algorithm and the level of enrichment (fold increase) in serum of individual subjects relative to pre-pandemic control subjects is depicted in the heat map. Samples 1–20 are pre-vaccine and samples 21–40 are the same subjects after Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Subjects 41–48 are from subjects that received Moderna vaccine. Samples 49–53 are vaccinated subjects that previously had COVID-19.
Fig 2.
Linear epitope mapping of spike protein in mRNA vaccine recipients.
The relative specificty for linear epitopes or PIWAS score (Y-axes, color coded key to right) are graphed across the spike primary sequence (amino acid numbers on X-axis) for paired samples from subjects# 1–20 in panel A (pre-vaccine) and panel B (post-vaccine) that received Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Panel C shows data from subjects # 21–28, post Moderna vaccine and panel D shows vaccinated subjects# 29–33 that previously had COVID-19.
Fig 3.
Alignment of dominant linear vaccine epitopes with those induced by infection and in other coronaviruses.
Alignment of vaccine epitopes with those previously described in natural SARS-CoV-2 infection (A). Alignment of vaccine epitopes with homologous regions in other coronaviruses (B). * are spaces included to maximize alignment.
Fig 4.
Dominant linear epitopes in COVID-19 mRNA vaccine recipients.
The relative IgG binding (average PIWAS, Y-axes) to different linear epitopes (spike amino acid number, X-axis) is highlighted for the C-terminal domains of S1 (A) and S2 (B). Data are from N = 20 Pfizer-BioNTech, N = 8 Moderna vaccine recipients, and N = 5 prior COVID-19 patients that received either Pfizer or Moderna vaccine as labeled in the key in upper right. The red line corresponds to the 95% quantile PIWAS score for a prior cohort of COVID+ subjects [12]. Note the highest PIWAS scores for LE-1 and LE-2 as labeled and limited vaccine induced IgG towards fusion peptide region, aa 788–806 [30].