T-cell responses and BNTX11 Aug 2020 01:32
Echoes in 'Seeking Alpha' from the recent 'Nature' article : "Long-lasting T cell immunity stimulated by prior exposure to the virus that caused SARS in 2003 (source: Le Bert et al., Singapore). Not only was the US less prepared strategically for this virus to arrive, its populace may have been less prepared biologically. Absent natural immunity via prior coronavirus exposure, vaccines that result in long-lasting T cell immunity are in the interest of national security."
" . . . the findings of the Singapore team have implications for vaccine development: memory T cells are important. This team demonstrated that T cells of some convalescents from both epidemics (2003 SARS and COVID-19) responded to portions of nucleocapsid protein common to both viruses, ie shared antigens. Some of that shared T cell reactivity was just in the CD4+ subpopulation while in other convalescents, reactivity to shared NP structure was in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. That is significant for vaccine developers because it indicates that a viral epitope that elicits a CD4+ response may not elicit a CD8+ response. It also may be important that natural infection elicited T cell response to NP, an internal viral protein not susceptible to neutralizing antibodies like the spike protein. The spike protein is the target of most COVID-19 virus-specific vaccines in development. Vaccine correlates of protection are traditionally regarded to be the antibody responses they elicit, but the Singapore paper adds to growing evidence that T cell response is just as if not more important. Some COVID-19 infections result in only a brief or no identifiable antibody response at all. In these cases, it is likely that infection has been cleared by CD8+ T cells, and in fact, cellular immune response without seroconversion has been documented (Gallais et al., 2020)."
"China with 5,327 reported SARS cases in 2003: no COVID-19 deaths since late March. Hong Kong with 1,755 in 2003: still reporting up to 4 deaths daily in July. Taiwan with 655 in 2003: no COVID-19 deaths since mid-May. Singapore with 238 cases: only 1 death since mid-June. Canada had 251 SARS cases but these were largely limited to an outbreak in Toronto. Canada has reported <12 deaths daily since mid-July. US had 33 SARS cases in 2003: after declines in May & June, the death rate has risen to >1,460 daily"
Good to see more chat about T-cells. It'd be great to learn some more about the progress of 'Covidity'. I'm sure the Scancell team are working flat out !
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4367241-t-cell-responses-to-coronavirus-vaccines-are-in-interest-of-national-security?
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