• Ling Ni, Fang Ye, Meng-Li Cheng, Yu Feng, Yong-Qiang Deng, Hui Zhao, Peng Wei, Jiwan Ge, Mengting Gou, Xiaoli Li, Lin Sun, Tianshu Cao, Pengzhi Wang, Chao Zhou, Rongrong Zhang, Peng Liang, Han Guo, Xinquan Wang, Cheng-Feng Qin, Fang Chen, and Chen Dong.
• Institute for Immunology and School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing, China; Center for Human Disease Immuno-monitoring, Beijing Friendship Hospital, 100050 Beijing, China.
• Immunity. 2020 Jun 16; 52 (6): 971-977.e3.

AbstractThe World Health Organization has declared SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak a worldwide pandemic. However, there is very limited understanding on the immune responses, especially adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Here, we collected blood from COVID-19 patients who have recently become virus-free, and therefore were discharged, and detected SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral and cellular immunity in eight newly discharged patients. Follow-up analysis on another cohort of six patients 2 weeks post discharge also revealed high titers of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies. In all 14 patients tested, 13 displayed serum-neutralizing activities in a pseudotype entry assay. Notably, there was a strong correlation between neutralization antibody titers and the numbers of virus-specific T cells. Our work provides a basis for further analysis of protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2, and understanding the pathogenesis of COVID-19, especially in the severe cases. It also has implications in developing an effective vaccine to SARS-CoV-2 infection.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

32 keywords...

hide…