Immune memory in convalescent patients with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19

oleh: Quan-Xin Long, Yan-Jun Jia, Xin Wang, Hai-Jun Deng, Xiao-Xia Cao, Jun Yuan, Liang Fang, Xu-Rong Cheng, Chao Luo, An-Ran He, Xiao-Jun Tang, Jie-li Hu, Yuan Hu, Ni Tang, Xue-Fei Cai, De-Qiang Wang, Jie Hu, Jing-Fu Qiu, Bei-Zhong Liu, Juan Chen, Ai-long Huang

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Nature Publishing Group 2021-03-01

Deskripsi

Abstract It is important to evaluate the durability of the protective immune response elicited by primary infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Here, we systematically evaluated the SARS-CoV-2-specific memory B cell and T cell responses in healthy controls and individuals recovered from asymptomatic or symptomatic infection approximately 6 months prior. Comparatively low frequencies of memory B cells specific for the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of spike glycoprotein (S) persisted in the peripheral blood of individuals who recovered from infection (median 0.62%, interquartile range 0.48-0.69). The SARS-CoV-2 RBD-specific memory B cell response was detected in 2 of 13 individuals who recovered from asymptomatic infection and 10 of 20 individuals who recovered from symptomatic infection. T cell responses induced by S, membrane (M), and nucleocapsid (N) peptide libraries from SARS-CoV-2 were observed in individuals recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and cross-reactive T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 were also detected in healthy controls.