Characterization of anti-viral immunity in recovered individuals infected by SARS-CoV-2

  1. Ling Ni
  2. Fang Ye
  3. Meng-Li Chen
  4. Yu Feng
  5. Yong-Qiang Deng
  6. Hui Zhao
  7. Peng Wei
  8. Jiwan Ge
  9. Xiaoli Li
  10. Lin Sun
  11. Pengzhi Wang
  12. Peng Liang
  13. Han Guo
  14. Xinquan Wang
  15. Cheng-Feng Qin
  16. Fang Chen
  17. Chen Dong

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Abstract

The WHO has declared SARS-CoV-2 outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. However, to date, there was hardly any study in characterizing the immune responses, especially adaptive immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection. In this study, we collected blood from COVID-19 patients who have recently become virus-free and therefore were discharged, and analyzed their SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody and T cell responses. We observed SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral and cellular immunity in the patients. Both were detected in newly discharged patients, suggesting both participate in immune-mediated protection to viral infection. However, follow-up patients (2 weeks post discharge) exhibited high titers of IgG antibodies, but with low levels of virus-specific T cells, suggesting that they may enter a quiescent state. Our work has thus provided 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 has also implications in designing an effective vaccine to protect and treat SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.17.20036640: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (the institutional review board at Tsinghua University) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all subjects for being included in the study.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Western blot was performed to confirm their antigenicity by mouse anti-His monoclonal antibody (Proteintech, HRP-66005)
    anti-His
    suggested: None
    An anti-Human IgG-biotin conjugated monoclonal antibody (Sino Biological Inc., Wayne, PA) and streptavidin-HRP were used at a dilution of 1:500 and 1:250, respectively, and anti-human IgM-HRP conjugated monoclonal antibody (Inova Diagnostics, Inc., San Diego, CA).
    anti-Human IgG-biotin
    suggested: None
    anti-human IgM-HRP
    suggested: None
    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    Neutralizing antibody assay: Pseudovirus expressing the SARS-CoV-2 S protein was produced as described previously 19. pNL43Luci and GP-pCAGGS were co-transfected into 293T cells.
    293T
    suggested: NCBI_Iran Cat# C498, RRID:CVCL_0063)
    Then the mixtures were transferred to 96-well plates containing monolayers of Huh-7 cells.
    Huh-7
    suggested: CLS Cat# 300156/p7178_HuH7, RRID:CVCL_0336)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    The neutralizing antibody titer were calculated by performing S-fit analysis via Graphpad Prism 7 software.
    Graphpad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)
    FACS staining: PBMCs were washed with PBS plus 2% FBS (Gibco, Grand Island, NY), and then Fc blocking reagent (Meltenyi Biotec, Inc., Auburn, CA) was added followed by a wash with PBS plus 2% FBS.
    Meltenyi Biotec
    suggested: None
    Data were analyzed using FlowJo software (Version 10.0.8
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    Statistical analysis: Prism 7 software is used for statistical analysis.
    Prism
    suggested: (PRISM, RRID:SCR_005375)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.17.20036640v1 on medRxiv