Notice: Users may be experiencing issues with displaying some pages on stanfordhealthcare.org. We are working closely with our technical teams to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience.
 

Learn about the flu shot, COVID-19 vaccine, and our masking policy »

Stanford Health Care

CD8+ T cells specific for conserved coronavirus epitopes correlate with milder disease in COVID-19 patients. Science immunology Mallajosyula, V., Ganjavi, C., Chakraborty, S., McSween, A. M., Pavlovitch-Bedzyk, A. J., Wilhelmy, J., Nau, A., Manohar, M., Nadeau, K. C., Davis, M. M. 2021; 6 (61)

Abstract

A central feature of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that some individuals become severely ill or die, whereas others have only a mild disease course or are asymptomatic. Here we report development of an improved multimeric alphabeta T cell staining reagent platform, with each maxi-ferritin "spheromer" displaying 12 peptide-MHC complexes. Spheromers stain specific T cells more efficiently than peptide-MHC tetramers and capture a broader portion of the sequence repertoire for a given peptide-MHC. Analyzing the response in unexposed individuals, we find that T cells recognizing peptides conserved amongst coronaviruses are more abundant and tend to have a "memory" phenotype, compared to those unique to SARS-CoV-2. Significantly, CD8+ T cells with these conserved specificities are much more abundant in COVID-19 patients with mild disease versus those with a more severe illness, suggesting a protective role.

View details for DOI 10.1126/sciimmunol.abg5669

View details for PubMedID 34210785