Longitudinal Assessment of SARS-CoV-2-Specific T Cell Cytokine-Producing Responses for 1 Year Reveals Persistence of Multicytokine Proliferative Responses, with Greater Immunity Associated with Disease Severity

Abstract

Our findings highlight the relative importance of SARS-CoV-2-specific GzmB-producing T cell responses in SARS-CoV-2 control and shared CD4 and CD8 immunodominant epitopes in seasonal coronaviruses or SARS-CoV-1, and they indicate robust persistence of T cell memory at least 1 year after infection. Our findings should inform future strategies to induce T cell vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses.

High‐resolution analysis of individual spike peptide‐specific CD4+ T‐cell responses in vaccine recipients and COVID‐19 patients

“…Overall, our research suggests that while there is a decline in antibody titres, the memory T cells should render longer‐lasting protective effects. This notion is supported by other groups, who also observed long‐lasting T‐cell responses 61,62 …”

“…This notion is supported by other groups, who also observed long-lasting T-cell responses. 61,62 Three individuals in our cohort, HH-SP-02, HH-SP-04 and HH-SP-05, were immunosuppressed because they either received immunosuppressive medication or chemotherapy. Despite a dysfunctional B-cell response indicated by a negative nucleocapsid and spike antibody titres for HH-SP-02 and HH-SP-04, they showed substantial spike-specific CD4 + T-cell responses with 16 and 19 recognised peptide specificities, respectively.…”

Correlates of protection against COVID-19 infection and intensity of symptomatic disease in vaccinated individuals exposed to SARS-CoV-2 in households in Israel (ICoFS): a prospective cohort study

“…We did not find a significant correlation between T-cell activation and protection from infection, although our study might have been underpowered to detect this effect due to the small sample size of the T-cell cohort. Studies published between 2021 and 2022 showed high SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell activation following severe disease 21 and impaired protection from infection in rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta ) following CD8 T-cell depletion, 22 suggesting that cellular immunity can contribute to protection against SARS-CoV-2. It was proposed that memory T cells might protect populations from severe infections, 23 , 24 perhaps when antibody titres are waning.…”

Long-term durability of immune responses to the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 vaccines based on dosage, age and sex

“…CD4 + and CD8 + cells exhibit complex cytokine secretion and regulation dynamics. Recent studies on SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans have shown that cytokines are primarily produced by CD4+ cells, and that CD8+ are suppressed throughout the course of infection 12,93 . Here, we consider a simplified approach where IFN-γ and Interleukin (I) cytokine production by primed CD4 + cells.…”