Antigen-Specific Adaptive Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in Acute COVID-19 and Associations with Age and Disease Severity

Overview

Journal Cell

Publisher Cell Press

Specialty Cell Biology

Date 2020 Oct 4

PMID 33010815

Citations 1127

Authors

Carolyn Rydyznski Moderbacher

Sydney I Ramirez

Jennifer M Dan

Alba Grifoni

Kathryn M Hastie

Daniela Weiskopf

Simon Belanger

Robert K Abbott

Christina Kim

Jinyong Choi

Yu Kato

Eleanor G Crotty

Cheryl Kim

Stephen A Rawlings

Jose Mateus

Long Ping Victor Tse

April Frazier

Ralph Baric

Bjoern Peters

Jason Greenbaum

Erica Ollmann Saphire

Davey M Smith

Alessandro Sette

Shane Crotty

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Limited knowledge is available on the relationship between antigen-specific immune responses and COVID-19 disease severity. We completed a combined examination of all three branches of adaptive immunity at the level of SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell and neutralizing antibody responses in acute and convalescent subjects. SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells were each associated with milder disease. Coordinated SARS-CoV-2-specific adaptive immune responses were associated with milder disease, suggesting roles for both CD4 and CD8 T cells in protective immunity in COVID-19. Notably, coordination of SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific responses was disrupted in individuals ≥ 65 years old. Scarcity of naive T cells was also associated with aging and poor disease outcomes. A parsimonious explanation is that coordinated CD4 T cell, CD8 T cell, and antibody responses are protective, but uncoordinated responses frequently fail to control disease, with a connection between aging and impaired adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2.

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