Summary Administration of plasma therapy may contribute to viral control and survival of COVID‐19 patients receiving B‐cell‐depleting agents that impair humoral immunity. However, little is known on the impact of anti‐CD20 pre‐exposition on the kinetics of SARS‐CoV‐2‐specific antibodies. Here, we evaluated the relationship between anti‐spike immunoglobulin G (IgG) kinetics and the clinical status or intra‐host viral evolution after plasma therapy in 36 eligible hospitalized COVID‐19 patients, pre‐exposed or not to B‐cell‐depleting treatments. The majority of anti‐CD20 pre‐exposed patients (14/17) showed progressive declines of anti‐spike IgG titres following plasma therapy, contrasting with the 4/19 patients who had not received B‐cell‐depleting agents ( p = 0.0006). Patients with antibody decay also depicted prolonged clinical symptoms according to the World Health Organization (WHO) severity classification ( p = 0.0267) and SARS‐CoV‐2 viral loads ( p = 0.0032) before complete virus clearance. Moreover, they had higher mutation rates than patients able to mount an endogenous humoral response ( p = 0.015), including three patients with one to four spike mutations, potentially associated with immune escape. No relevant differences were observed between patients treated with plasma from convalescent and/or mRNA‐vaccinated donors. Our study emphasizes the need for an individualized clinical care and follow‐up in the management of COVID‐19 patients with B‐cell lymphopenia.

BackgroundAdministration of plasma therapy may contribute to viral control and survival of COVID-19 patients receiving B-cell depleting agents that hinder the endogenous humoral response. However, little is known on the impact of anti-CD20 pre-exposition and the use of different sources of plasma (convalescent versus vaccinated) on the kinetics of SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies and viral evolution after plasma therapy.MethodsEligible COVID-19 patients (n = 36), half of them after anti-CD20 targeted therapy, were treated with therapeutic plasma from convalescent (n = 17) or mRNA-vaccinated (n = 19) donors. Each plasma-transfused patient was thoroughly monitored over time by anti-S IgG quantification and whole-genome SARS-CoV-2 sequencing.ResultsThe majority of anti-CD20 pre-exposed patients (15/18) showed progressive declines of anti-S protein IgG titers following plasma therapy, indicating that they mostly relied on the passive transfer of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Such antibody kinetics correlated with prolonged infection before virus clearance, contrasting with the endogenous humoral response predominantly present in patients who had not received B-cell depleting agents (15/18). No relevant differences were observed between patients treated with plasma from convalescent and/or vaccinated donors. Finally, 4/30 genotyped patients showed increased intra-host viral evolution and 3/30 included 1 to 4 spike mutations, potentially associated to immune escape.ConclusionsConvalescent and/or vaccinated plasma therapy may provide anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and clinical benefit to B-cell depleted COVID-19 patients. Only a limited number of patients acquired viral mutations prior to clinical recovery, yet our study further emphasizes the need for long-term surveillance for intra-host variant evolution, to guide best therapeutic strategies.

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