Patients With Mild COVID-19 Exhibit Low Functional Avidity of SARS-CoV-2 Membrane Protein-Reactive CD4+ T Cells

Résumé fourni par la source

Herein, we found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)unexposed individuals exhibited an increased frequency of CD4 + T cells against SARS-CoV-2 membrane (M) protein, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2 M-reactive cells may be primed by previous infection with common cold coronaviruses (CCCoVs).We confirmed that CCCoV M-reactive CD4 + T cells cross-recognize SARS-CoV-2 M in unexposed individuals.Among coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) convalescents and unexposed individuals, SARS-CoV-2 M-reactive CD4 + T cells exhibited significantly lower functional avidity than CD4 + T cells reactive to other viruses.Importantly, convalescents from mild COVID-19 had SARS-CoV-2 M-reactive CD4 + T cells with significantly lower functional avidity than convalescents from severe COVID-19.The current data suggest that pre-existing CCCoV M-specific memory CD4 + T cells may contribute to controlling SARS-CoV-2 infection by cross-reactivity, leading to mild disease but leaving memory cells with low functional avidity to SARS-CoV-2 M due to incomplete homology.These data provide indirect evidence that pre-existing cross-reactive CD4 + T cells contribute to protection from severe COVID-19.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.