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IMAGE: Transmission electron micrograph of SARS-CoV-2 virus particles, isolated from a patient. Image captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. view more
Credit: NIAID
LA JOLLA A new study led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) suggests that T cells try to fight SARS-CoV-2 by targeting a broad range of sites on the virus beyond the key sites on the virus s spike protein. By attacking the virus from many angles, the body has the tools to potentially recognize different SARS-CoV-2 variants.
The new research, published January 27, 2021 in
Cell Report Medicine, is the most detailed analysis so far of which proteins on SARS-CoV-2 stimulate the strongest responses from the immune system s helper CD4+ T cells and killer CD8+ T cells.
Credit: Jenna Hambrick, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
LA JOLLA New data suggest that nearly all COVID-19 survivors have the immune cells necessary to fight re-infection.
The findings, based on analyses of blood samples from 188 COVID-19 patients, suggest that responses to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, from all major players in the adaptive immune system, which learns to fight specific pathogens, can last for at least eight months after the onset of symptoms from the initial infection. Our data suggest that the immune response is there and it stays, LJI Professor Alessandro Sette, Dr. Biol. Sci., who co-led the study with LJI Professor Shane Crotty, Ph.D., and LJI Research Assistant Professor Daniela Weiskopf, Ph.D.