Immunogenicity of JN.1 and KP.2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccines against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants
Ninaad Lasrado, Annika Rössler, Isabella McConnell, Katherine Molloy, R. K. Bhowmik, Christine Happle, Ruoran Guan, Katherine McMahan, Juliana Pereira, Jinyan Liu, Erica N. Borducchi, Liping Wang, Krishna Shah, Bridget Wixted, Metodi V. Stankov, Alexandra Dopfer‐Jablonka, Ai‐ris Y. Collier, Georg M. N. Behrens, Dan H. Barouch
Abstract
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to evolve five years after the initial outbreak. Although mRNA vaccines encoding the JN.1 and KP.2 Spike proteins were authorized in fall 2024, it remains unclear whether vaccine updates will be necessary for variants containing antigenically closely related Spike proteins. In this study, we evaluated the immunogenicity of JN.1 and KP.2 mRNA boosters in participants from Germany and the United States, respectively. Both vaccines induced robust and similar neutralizing antibody responses against JN.1, KP.2, and other globally relevant variants such as LP.8.1.1 and NB.1.8.1. These data suggest that updating the vaccine formulation to closely related strains will likely offer only modest additional benefits against currently circulating variants.