{"doi":"10.1172/jci156083","title":"CD4+ T cells from COVID-19 mRNA vaccine recipients recognize a conserved epitope present in diverse coronaviruses","abstract":"Recent studies have shown that vaccinated individuals harbor T cells that can cross-recognize SARS-CoV-2 and endemic human common cold coronaviruses. However, it is still unknown whether CD4+ T cells from vaccinated individuals recognize peptides from bat coronaviruses that may have the potential of causing future pandemics. In this study, we identified a SARS-CoV-2 spike protein epitope (S815-827) that is conserved in coronaviruses from different genera and subgenera, including SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, multiple bat coronaviruses, and a feline coronavirus. Our results showed that S815-827 was recognized by 42% of vaccinated participants in our study who received the Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT162b2) or Moderna (mRNA-1273) COVID-19 vaccines. Using T cell expansion and T cell receptor sequencing assays, we demonstrated that S815-827-reactive CD4+ T cells from the majority of responders cross-recognized homologous peptides from at least 6 other diverse coronaviruses. Our results support the hypothesis that the current mRNA vaccines elicit T cell responses that can cross-recognize bat coronaviruses and thus might induce some protection against potential zoonotic outbreaks. Furthermore, our data provide important insights that inform the development of T cell-based pan-coronavirus vaccine strategies.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Investigation","year":2022,"id":247946,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":31,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9548,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":615681,"name":"Arbor G. Dykema","orcid":"0000-0001-5835-3261","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":293630,"name":"Caroline C. Garliss","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":886630,"name":"Saphira Cherfils","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":62880,"name":"Kellie N. Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-6295-8930","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":292101,"name":"Joel N. Blankson","orcid":"0000-0002-9683-8021","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":293628,"name":"Bezawit A. Woldemeskel","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:23:57.824223Z","pmid":"35061630","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":[]}