The impact of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on the Th-like cytokine profile in individuals with no history of COVID-19: Insights into autoimmunity targeting heat shock proteins

Tukaj, Stefan; Sitna, Magdalena; Sitko, Krzysztof

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2025.1549739

HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Immunological Tolerance and Regulation

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1549739

This article is part of the Research Topic Community Series in Autoantibodies: Volume II View all 10 articles

The impact of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine on the Th-like cytokine profile in individuals with no history of COVID-19: Insights into autoimmunity targeting heat shock proteins

Provisionally accepted

Stefan Tukaj ^*

Magdalena Sitna

Krzysztof Sitko

University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Although some reports suggest that COVID-19 vaccination may exacerbate existing autoimmune diseases or trigger new-onset cases, a definitive causal relationship between the vaccines and these conditions has not been established. Several potential mechanisms have been proposed to explain this association, including: (i) molecular mimicry, which refers to a structural similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and human antigens; (ii) bystander activation, involving both B and T lymphocytes; and (iii) the effects of adjuvants. In this study, we investigated whether two doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine influenced blood cytokine levels associated with major T helper cell populations, which are known to play a significant role in autoimmunity and revisited the role of the humoral autoimmune response directed against heat shock proteins (Hsps) in individuals with no history of COVID-19. While no significant differences were found in the levels of IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-22, IL-4, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-17A, between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, several positive correlations were observed between serum cytokine levels and circulating autoantibodies directed against self-Hsps exclusively in vaccinated individuals. These findings suggest that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine does not impact cytokines involved in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases.Further research is required to evaluate the safety of COVID-19 vaccination in patients with autoimmune conditions, particularly those in whom anti-Hsps autoantibodies are suspected to contribute to disease development.

Keywords: Cytokines, T helper cells, COVID-19, Heat shock proteins, SARS-CoV-2, Vaccine

Received: 21 Dec 2024; Accepted: 28 Feb 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Tukaj, Sitna and Sitko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Stefan Tukaj, University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland

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