SARS-CoV-2–Fighting T Cells Found in Recovered Patients
May 19, 2020 | 11:41 / Interesting information
Researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California took blood from 20 adults who had recovered from COVID-19 and exposed the samples to proteins from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. All of the patients had CD4+ helper T cells that recognized the virus’s spike protein, and 70 percent of them had CD8+ killer T cells that responded to the same protein. These data show that the virus induces what you would expect from a typical, successful antiviral response. The researchers also tested blood samples collected between 2015 and 2018 to see whether people who were never exposed to SARS-CoV-2 might nevertheless have some immunity to it. They detected CD4+ T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 in about half of those samples, which they suggest could be due to exposure to other coronaviruses that cause a cold. The results suggest that one reason that a large chunk of the population may be able to deal with the virus is that we may have some small residual immunity from our exposure to common cold viruses.
