Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19

2020; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1101/2020.06.29.174888

Takuya Sekine, André Perez‐Potti, Olga Rivera‐Ballesteros, Kristoffer Strålin, Jean‐Baptiste Gorin, Annika Olsson, Sian Llewellyn‐Lacey, Habiba Kamal, Gordana Bogdanović, Sandra Muschiol, David Wullimann, Tobias Kammann, Johanna Emgård, Tiphaine Parrot, Elin Folkesson, Olav Rooyackers, Lars I. Eriksson, Anders Sönnerborg, Tobias Allander, Jan Albert, Morten Nielsen, Jonas Klingström, Sara Gredmark‐Russ, Niklas K. Björkström, Johan K. Sandberg, David A. Price, Hans‐Gustaf Ljunggren, Soo Aleman, Marcus Buggert,

vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches

ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells will likely prove critical for long-term immune protection against COVID-19. We systematically mapped the functional and phenotypic landscape of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in a large cohort of unexposed individuals as well as exposed family members and individuals with acute or convalescent COVID-19. Acute phase SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells displayed a highly activated cytotoxic phenotype that correlated with various clinical markers of disease severity, whereas convalescent phase SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells were polyfunctional and displayed a stem-like memory phenotype. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells were detectable in antibody-seronegative family members and individuals with a history of asymptomatic or mild COVID-19. Our collective dataset shows that SARS-CoV-2 elicits robust memory T cell responses akin to those observed in the context of successful vaccines, suggesting that natural exposure or infection may prevent recurrent episodes of severe COVID-19 also in seronegative individuals.