T cell analysis of COVID infection and vaccination

National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases

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Abstract

We have identified and recruited over 30 local volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19 infection. Their disease characteristics have been recorded and blood samples have been drawn for comprehensive T cell analyses. Multiple longitudinal samples have been collected on most volunteers, and several have undergone leukopheresis. The T cell response to COVID 19 has been studied in 20 of the volunteers so far. PBMC were stimulated with overlapping peptides covering the SARS-CoV2 proteome, and their CD4 and CD8 response was evaluated by intracellular cytokine staining. Eight of the individuals to date are having their T cell response mapped to the epitope level by ELISPOT using matrix pools of peptides. Once the individual epitope responses are known their T cells will be stimulated by individual peptides and viably sorted for genomic analysis. We will determine the T cell receptor usage of the epitope-specific responses and the transcriptomic profiles of the individual T cells. These studies will be repeated on longitudinal samples to determine the evolution of the T cell response over time.