Long-Term Persistence of Robust Antibody and Cytotoxic T Cell Responses in Recovered Patients Infected with SARS Coronavirus

Li, Taisheng; Xie, Jing; He, Yuxian; Fan, Hongwei; Baril, Laurence; Qiu, Zhifeng; Han, Yang; Xu, Weifeng; Zhang, Weihong; You, Hui; Zuo, Yanling; Fang, Qing; Yu, Jian; Chen, Zhiwei; Zhang, Linqi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000024

Cited by 71 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…These responses were low in frequency since in vitro expansion of PBMCs was required for their detection. This is in agreement with previous reports that reported the decline of memory T cell responses in SARS convalescent individuals over time [13,15].…”

Section: Identification Of Sars-specific Memory T Cell Responses In Ssupporting

confidence: 94%

Memory T cell responses targeting the SARS coronavirus persist up to 11 years post-infection

Chia

Tan

et al. 2016

Vaccine

424

382

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a highly contagious infectious disease which first emerged in late 2002, caused by a then novel human coronavirus, SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). The virus is believed to have originated from bats and transmitted to human through intermediate animals such as civet cats. The re-emergence of SARS-CoV remains a valid concern due to the continual persistence of zoonotic SARS-CoVs and SARS-like CoVs (SL-CoVs) in bat reservoirs. In this study, the screening for the presence of SARS-specific T cells in a cohort of three SARS-recovered individuals at 9 and 11 years post-infection was carried out, and all memory T cell responses detected target the SARS-CoV structural proteins. Two CD8(+) T cell responses targeting the SARS-CoV membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins were characterized by determining their HLA restriction and minimal T cell epitope regions. Furthermore, these responses were found to persist up to 11 years post-infection. An absence of cross-reactivity of these CD8(+) T cell responses against the newly-emerged Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was also demonstrated. The knowledge of the persistence of SARS-specific celullar immunity targeting the viral structural proteins in SARS-recovered individuals is important in the design and development of SARS vaccines, which are currently unavailable.

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Section: Identification Of Sars-specific Memory T Cell Responses In Ssupporting

confidence: 94%

Memory T cell responses targeting the SARS coronavirus persist up to 11 years post-infection

Chia

Tan

et al. 2016

Vaccine

424

382

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“…28 Using the same approach, another group identified 2 potential CTL epitopes at positions N211-235 and N330-354 in the N protein. 32 More recently, we also identified the same dominant response (N216-230) in SARS-recovered patients 6 years post-infection. 33 This response was observed in 19% [3/16] of our cohort of recovered SARS patients.…”

Section: Characterization Of T Cell Epitopes In the Nucleocapsid (N) mentioning

confidence: 59%

Understanding the T cell immune response in SARS coronavirus infection

Gan

Bertoletti

et al. 2012

Emerging Microbes & Infections

137

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The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic started in late 2002 and swiftly spread across 5 continents with a mortality rate of around 10%. Although the epidemic was eventually controlled through the implementation of strict quarantine measures, there continues a need to investigate the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and develop interventions should it re-emerge. Numerous studies have shown that neutralizing antibodies against the virus can be found in patients infected with SARS-CoV within days upon the onset of illness and lasting up to several months. In contrast, there is little data on the kinetics of T cell responses during SARS-CoV infection and little is known about their role in the recovery process. However, recent studies in mice suggest the importance of T cells in viral clearance during SARS-CoV infection. Moreover, a growing number of studies have investigated the memory T cell responses in recovered SARS patients. This review covers the available literature on the emerging importance of T cell responses in SARS-CoV infection, particularly on the mapping of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes, longevity, polyfunctionality and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) association as well as their potential implications on treatment and vaccine development.

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“…A positive result was defined as OD ≥ 0.14 (0.13 + mean of negatives (0.01)) as described previously (22). Neutralizing Ab against spike protein was measured by a pseudotype retrovirus-based neutralization assay as described previously (8).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%