SARS-CoV-2 Cellular and Humoral Immune Response Following Vaccination of Kidney Transplant Recipients and Healthy Controls

Kidney transplanted patients with post-transplant follow-up visits at the national transplant center in Norway will be included before they are SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated. As a control group the investigators will include blood samples from healthy volunteers (hospital employees) that receive vaccine as first line health care workers.

Baseline blood samples will be obtained before vaccination. The vaccination will be performed according to the national procedures and not necessarily by the hospital. Following vaccination, all patients and controls will have blood drawn 7-10 days as well as 4-6 weeks after the second dose. Depending on the results of the immunity testing the patients and controls may be invited to additional blood sampling up or at specific time points to two years following vaccination.

At each blood sampling and at the time of both vaccinations the systemic exposure of tacrolimus will be assessed in kidney transplanted patients.

All samples will be analyzed with validated assays for SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin G (IgG) (anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) spike protein) using ELISA, flow cytometry bead arrays and SARS-CoV-2 neutralization assays or comparable techniques. Cells will be analyzed by flow and mass cytometry for activation and phenotype markers, and with functional assays for responsiveness (e.g. proliferation and cytokine production). Samples will be HLA-typed if HLA-genotype if not already established.