SARS CoV2 Studies in the Helminth Immunology Section/LPD

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, we leveraged our expertise in human T cell cloning to generate SARS-CoV2-specificT cell lines from naive CD4+ and CD8+ T cells of uninfected (SARS Cov2-naive) individuals. To this end, we generated S-specific, M-specific, CMV-specific (controls), CEF-specific and Oc43-specific human TCLs (a total of 96 lines from 6 individuals) driven by defined comprehensive peptide pools. Our data demonstrate clearly that the majority of the CD4+ SARS CoV2-specific cells have an effector memory phenotype. More importantly, scRNAseq analysis on the S-specific and the M-specific human TCLs indicates that the Spike protein drives Type 1 and Type III interferon pathways that favor anti-viral activity whereas the M-specific human T cells suppresses these (and other pathways) that favor viral replication.