Role of T-cell immunity in the fight against COVID-19

Understanding the architecture of the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 is critical to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Medical Research Center of Hematology with the participation of the Center for High-Precision Editing and Genetic Technologies for Biomedicine of the Russian National Research Medical University conducted a comparative study of the presence of antibodies to COVID 19 and the T-cell response in a group of recovering patients with COVID-19 and healthy donors, using samples taken both before and during the pandemic.

It has been shown that not all COVID-19 patients have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Apparently, in some of the recovered patients, the immune response is provided mainly by T-cells.

As part of a study of the T-cell response to coronavirus infection, T-cell receptor variants specific to COVID-19 antigens have been identified and characteristic motifs in the T-cell receptor sequences of COVID-19 reactive clones have been described, suggesting the existence of immunodominant epitopes.

The article was published in the journal IMMUNITY (IMPACT FACTOR 22.53).

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