ELISpot

So the first finding or the first experiment they conducted, the authors first needed to establish whether this mRNA vaccine could generate stronger immune responses compared to the conventional influenza vaccine.

How they did this was that they collected blood following vaccination and measured HA-specific plasmablasts by ELISPOT and plasma IgG titers by ELISA and HA-specific memory B cells by flow cytometry.

And what they found was that at week one, the peak plasmablast response based on the mRNA vaccine recipient had significantly higher frequencies of IgG and IgA plasma blasts compared to the conventional vaccine.

They also found significantly higher greater increases in IgG antibody titers against the influenza A H1 and influenza A H3 vaccine virus subtypes at week four and these higher titers persisted through to the final time point.