The results of a study led by Northern Arizona University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggest the immune systems of people infected with COVID-19 may rely on antibodies created during infections from earlier coronaviruses to help fight the disease.
Image/Dr. Fred Murphy & Sylvia Whitfield/CDC
COVID-19 isn’t humanity’s first encounter with a coronavirus, so named because of the corona, or crown-like, protein spikes on their surface. Before SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 humans have navigated at least 6 other types of coronaviruses.
The study sought to understand how coronaviruses (CoVs) ignite the human immune system and conduct a deeper dive on the inner workings of the antibody response. The published findings, “Epitope-resolved profiling of the SARS-CoV-2 antibody response identifies cross-reactivity with endemic human coronaviruses,” appear in the journal
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The results of a study led by Northern Arizona University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggest the immune systems of people infected with COVID-19 may rely on antibodies created during infections from earlier coronaviruses to help fight the disease.
COVID-19 isn t humanity s first encounter with a coronavirus, so named because of the corona, or crown-like, protein spikes on their surface. Before SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 humans have navigated at least 6 other types of coronaviruses.
The study sought to understand how coronaviruses (CoVs) ignite the human immune system and conduct a deeper dive on the inner workings of the antibody response. The published findings, Epitope-resolved profiling of the SARS-CoV-2 antibody response identifies cross-reactivity with endemic human coronaviruses, appear today in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.
This knowledge could help researchers design new diagnostics, evaluate the healing powers of convalescent plasma, develop new therapeutic treatments, and importantly help design future vaccines or monoclonal antibody therapies capable of protecting against mutations that may occur in the COVID-19 virus. The findings could help explain the widely varying reactions COVID-19 patients have to the disease.