Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Dec;14(6):746-751.
doi: 10.1007/s11684-020-0822-5. Epub 2020 Oct 5.

Durability of neutralizing antibodies and T-cell response post SARS-CoV-2 infection

Yun Tan  1 , Feng Liu  1 , Xiaoguang Xu  1 , Yun Ling  2 , Weijin Huang  3 , Zhaoqin Zhu  2 , Mingquan Guo  2 , Yixiao Lin  2 , Ziyu Fu  1 , Dongguo Liang  1 , Tengfei Zhang  2 , Jian Fan  2 , Miao Xu  3 , Hongzhou Lu  4 , Saijuan Chen  5
Affiliations

Durability of neutralizing antibodies and T-cell response post SARS-CoV-2 infection

Yun Tan et al. Front Med. 2020 Dec.

Abstract

The ongoing pandemic of Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is caused by a newly discovered β Coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). How long the adaptive immunity triggered by SARS-CoV-2 can last is of critical clinical relevance in assessing the probability of second infection and efficacy of vaccination. Here we examined, using ELISA, the IgG antibodies in serum specimens collected from 17 COVID-19 patients at 6-7 months after diagnosis and the results were compared to those from cases investigated 2 weeks to 2 months post-infection. All samples were positive for IgGs against the S- and N-proteins of SARS-CoV-2. Notably, 14 samples available at 6-7 months post-infection all showed significant neutralizing activities in a pseudovirus assay, with no difference in blocking the cell-entry of the 614D and 614G variants of SARS-CoV-2. Furthermore, in 10 blood samples from cases at 6-7 months post-infection used for memory T-cell tests, we found that interferon γ-producing CD4+ and CD8+ cells were increased upon SARS-CoV-2 antigen stimulation. Together, these results indicate that durable anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunity is common in convalescent population, and vaccines developed from 614D variant may offer protection from the currently predominant 614D variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; T-cell response; neutralizing antibodies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Yun Tan, Feng Liu, Xiaoguang Xu, Yun Ling, Weijin Huang, Zhaoqin Zhu, Mingquan Guo, Yixiao Lin, Ziyu Fu, Dongguo Liang, Tengfei Zhang, Jian Fan, Miao Xu, Hongzhou Lu, and Saijuan Chen declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Comment in

References

    1. Zhou G, Chen S, Chen Z. Back to the spring of 2020: facts and hope of COVID-19 outbreak. Front Med. 2020;14(2):113–116. doi: 10.1007/s11684-020-0758-9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhou G, Chen S, Chen Z. Advances in COVID-19: the virus, the pathogenesis, and evidence-based control and therapeutic strategies. Front Med. 2020;14(2):117–125. doi: 10.1007/s11684-020-0773-x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhou M, Zhang X, Qu J. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a clinical update. Front Med. 2020;14(2):126–135. doi: 10.1007/s11684-020-0767-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Le Bert N, Tan AT, Kunasegaran K, Tham CYL, Hafezi M, Chia A, Chng MHY, Lin M, Tan N, Linster M, Chia WN, Chen MI, Wang LF, Ooi EE, Kalimuddin S, Tambyah PA, Low JG, Tan YJ, Bertoletti A. SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls. Nature. 2020;584(7821):457–462. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2550-z. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Grifoni A, Weiskopf D, Ramirez SI, Mateus J, Dan JM, Moderbacher CR, Rawlings SA, Sutherland A, Premkumar L, Jadi RS, Marrama D, de Silva AM, Frazier A, Carlin AF, Greenbaum JA, Peters B, Krammer F, Smith DM, Crotty S, Sette A. Targets of T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in humans with COVID-19 disease and unexposed individuals. Cell. 2020;181(7):1489–1501.e15. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.015. - DOI - PMC - PubMed