{"doi":"10.1093/infdis/jiaf144","title":"Evaluation of Cellular Immune Responses After mRNA-1273 Vaccination in Children 6 Months to 11 Years of Age","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Cell-mediated immunity (CMI) may help protect against emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants that are less susceptible to neutralizing antibodies. We present CMI data after the mRNA-1273 primary series in a subset of participants aged 6 months to 11 years from the phase 2/3 KidCOVE trial. METHODS: T-cell responses were assessed after 2 doses of mRNA-1273 (6 months to 5 years, 25 μg; 6-11 years, 50 μg) or placebo administered 28 days apart. Magnitude, phenotype, and percentage of ancestral SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein T-cell responses to pooled peptides were assessed by intracellular cytokine staining and polyfunctionality analyses. RESULTS: A total of 68 children aged 6 months to 11 years received either the 2-dose mRNA-1273 primary series or placebo (51 and 17, respectively) at 28-day interval. mRNA-1273 induced S-protein-specific CD4+ T-cell responses exhibiting a type 1 T helper (Th1)-biased profile at day 43 and day 209 compared with placebo. S-protein-specific CD8+ T-cell responses were less frequently detected in children <5 years and undetectable in those <2 years. Compared with placebo, mRNA-1273 induced higher frequencies of S-specific polyfunctional CD4+ T cells at day 43; frequencies declined but remained detectable at day 209. Correlation between Th1 CD4+ responses and neutralizing antibodies was observed across age groups following mRNA-1273 vaccination. CONCLUSIONS: The 2-dose mRNA-1273 primary series elicited robust and durable (≥ 6 months) Th1-biased CD4+ T-cell responses in children aged 6 months to 11 years. CD8+ T-cell responses varied by age. Clinical Trials Registration. NCT04796896.","journal":"The Journal of Infectious Diseases","year":2025,"id":519266,"datarank":0.3036700244278161,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.01178350206951907,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.01178350206951907,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":4,"citers_with_citation_signal":1,"citers_with_endowment":1,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9279,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"ClinicalTrials.gov":["NCT04796896"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":37429,"name":"James D. Campbell","orcid":"0000-0002-2931-9643","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1048398,"name":"Grant Paulsen","orcid":"0000-0002-8901-6513","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1257713,"name":"Sabine Schnyder Ghamloush","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1257234,"name":"W. Xu","orcid":"0000-0002-5976-4991","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":430737,"name":"Lingyi Zheng","orcid":"0000-0002-3446-3447","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":52019,"name":"M. Juliana McElrath","orcid":"0000-0003-2276-7117","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":331738,"name":"Stephen C. De Rosa","orcid":"0000-0003-3871-4618","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900990,"name":"Bethany Girard","orcid":"0000-0001-9390-230X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":900991,"name":"Rituparna Das","orcid":"0000-0002-5166-0311","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":94484,"name":"Evan J. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0002-1576-4420","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103450,"name":"C. Buddy Creech","orcid":"0000-0002-8276-9053","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":94488,"name":"Christina A. Rostad","orcid":"0000-0001-8439-0592","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:49:18.751199Z","pmid":"40119775","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}