11–20 of 98 posts
I didn't read the article, but my very basic understanding of mRNA vaccines is that they cause your own cells to produce the spike protein so that your immune system can learn to attack it without actually having the virus present. Does this finding imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair? Or is it more like, in combination with the virus, the spike protein inhibits DNA repair?
[flagged]
I didn't read the article, but my very basic understanding of mRNA vaccines is that they cause your own cells to produce the spike protein so that your immune system can learn to attack it without actually having the virus present. Does this finding imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair? Or is it more like, in combination with the virus, the spike protein inhibits DNA repair?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair. I think the key question is timescale. I suspect this would be a short-term side effect, with no real impact. If not -- if it's longitudinal -- it could be scary. I can't imagine how that would happen, though. Virus would have the same effect, so this isn't an anti-vax argument.
Half-life of mRNA is fairly small, as there is no shortage of enzymes that basically just break it down for recycling. The real problem would have to stem from DNA damage that occurred in the presence of the vaccine that did not either lead to cell death, or get repaired later.
I have no idea how often the body needs to repair DNA and what the effects of not doing it for a few days are though.
> Our findings provide evidence of the spike protein hijacking the DNA damage repair machinery and adaptive immune machinery in vitro. We propose a potential mechanism by which spike proteins may impair adaptive immunity by inhibiting DNA damage repair. Although no evidence has been published that SARS–CoV–2 can infect thymocytes or bone marrow lymphoid cells, our in vitro V(D)J reporter assay shows that the spike protein intensely impeded V(D)J recombination. Consistent with our results, clinical observations also show that the risk of severe illness or death with COVID–19 increases with age, especially older adults who are at the highest risk [22]. This may be because SARS–CoV–2 spike proteins can weaken the DNA repair system of older people and consequently impede V(D)J recombination and adaptive immunity. In contrast, our data provide valuable details on the involvement of spike protein subunits in DNA damage repair, indicating that full–length spike–based vaccines may inhibit the recombination of V(D)J in B cells, which is also consistent with a recent study that a full–length spike–based vaccine induced lower antibody titers compared to the RBD–based vaccine [28].
> This suggests that the use of antigenic epitopes of the spike as a SARS–CoV–2 vaccine might be safer and more efficacious than the full–length spike. Taken together, we identified one of the potentially important mechanisms of SARS–CoV–2 suppression of the host adaptive immune machinery. Furthermore, our findings also imply a potential side effect of the full–length spike–based vaccine. This work will improve the understanding of COVID–19 pathogenesis and provide new strategies for designing more efficient and safer vaccines.
In vitro findings are obviously not as compelling as in vivo findings, but it sounds like this issue is worthy of further investigation. It's a bit disconcerting to learn that the spike protein expressed by vaccines administered to over a billion people might be implicated in the impairment of adaptive immunity.
All mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) and the adenovirus vector vaccines (AstraZeneca, J&J, etc.) express the full-length spike protein.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair. I think the key question is timescale. I suspect this would be a short-term side effect, with no real impact. If not -- if it's longitudinal -- it could be scary. I can't imagine how that would happen, though. Virus would have the same effect, so this isn't an anti-vax argument.
Yeah, for context I'm fully vaccinated and not trying to create distrust of the mRNA vaccines. Just curious because that seems like a pretty bad thing. It makes sense that this would only happen while the spike proteins are actually present in your body. Thanks for the response!
Effectiveness against infections declined from 88% (95% CI 86–89) during the first month after full vaccination to 47% (43–51) after 5 months. Among sequenced infections, vaccine effectiveness against infections of the delta variant was high during the first month after full vaccination (93% [95% CI 85–97]) but declined to 53% [39–65] after 4 months.
I didn't read the article, but my very basic understanding of mRNA vaccines is that they cause your own cells to produce the spike protein so that your immune system can learn to attack it without actually having the virus present. Does this finding imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair? Or is it more like, in combination with the virus, the spike protein inhibits DNA repair?
[flagged]
I didn't read the article, but my very basic understanding of mRNA vaccines is that they cause your own cells to produce the spike protein so that your immune system can learn to attack it without actually having the virus present. Does this finding imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair? Or is it more like, in combination with the virus, the spike protein inhibits DNA repair?
[flagged]
I didn't read the article, but my very basic understanding of mRNA vaccines is that they cause your own cells to produce the spike protein so that your immune system can learn to attack it without actually having the virus present. Does this finding imply that the vaccine would also inhibit DNA damage repair? Or is it more like, in combination with the virus, the spike protein inhibits DNA repair?
The spike protein from the vaccine is injected into your muscle and does not circulate through your system.
> This suggests that the use of antigenic epitopes of the spike as a SARS–CoV–2 vaccine might be safer and more efficacious than the full–length spike. Taken together, we identified one of the potentially important mechanisms of SARS–CoV–2 suppression of the host adaptive immune machinery. Furthermore, our findings also imply a potential side effect of the full–length spike–based vaccine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
That doesn’t make sense.
The key finding: > Our findings provide evidence of the spike protein hijacking the DNA damage repair machinery and adaptive immune machinery in vitro. We propose a potential mechanism by which spike proteins may impair adaptive immunity by inhibiting DNA damage repair. Although no evidence has been published that SARS–CoV–2 can infect thymocytes or bone marrow lymphoid cells, our in vitro V(D)J reporter assay shows…
> mRNA vaccines tell our cells to make a piece of the “spike protein” that is found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Since only part of the protein is made, it does not harm the vaccine recipient, but it is antigenic and thus stimulates the immune system to make antibodies.