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
Review
. 2021 Jul 6;9(19):5007-5018.
doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i19.5007.

Insights into the virologic and immunologic features of SARS-COV-2

Ceylan Polat  1 , Koray Ergunay  2
Affiliations
Review

Insights into the virologic and immunologic features of SARS-COV-2

Ceylan Polat et al. World J Clin Cases. .

Abstract

The host immunity is crucial in determining the clinical course and prognosis of coronavirus disease 2019, where some systemic and severe manifestations are associated with excessive or suboptimal responses. Several antigenic epitopes in spike, nucleocapsid and membrane proteins of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 are targeted by the immune system, and a robust response with innate and adaptive components develops in infected individuals. High titer neutralizing antibodies and a balanced T cell response appears to constitute the optimal immune response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, where innate and mucosal defenses also contribute significantly. Following exposure, immunological memory seems to develop and be maintained for substantial periods. Here, we provide an overview of the main aspects in antiviral immunity involving innate and adaptive responses with insights into virus structure, individual variations pertaining to disease severity as well as long-term protective immunity expected to be attained by vaccination.

Keywords: Immune response; Neutralizing antibodies; SARS-CoV-2; Spike protein.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Organization of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 genome[11]. Open reading frame (ORF)1a encodes nsp1-10 and ORF1b encodes nsp1-16. Structural proteins are encoded by spike (S), envelope (E), membrane (M) and nucleocapsid (N). A poly(A) tail is located at the 3' untranslated region (UTR).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization. Statement on the Second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). 2020. Available from: https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=2804611 .
    1. World Health Organization. WHO Director-General’s remarks at the media briefing on 2019-nCoV on 11 February 2020. 2020. Available from: https://www.capitalethiopia.com/interview/who-director-generals-opening-...
    1. Gralinski LE, Menachery VD. Return of the Coronavirus: 2019-nCoV. Viruses. 2020;12 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li Q, Guan X, Wu P, Wang X, Zhou L, Tong Y, Ren R, Leung KSM, Lau EHY, Wong JY, Xing X, Xiang N, Wu Y, Li C, Chen Q, Li D, Liu T, Zhao J, Liu M, Tu W, Chen C, Jin L, Yang R, Wang Q, Zhou S, Wang R, Liu H, Luo Y, Liu Y, Shao G, Li H, Tao Z, Yang Y, Deng Z, Liu B, Ma Z, Zhang Y, Shi G, Lam TTY, Wu JT, Gao GF, Cowling BJ, Yang B, Leung GM, Feng Z. Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia. N Engl J Med. 2020;382:1199–1207. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu R, Zhao X, Li J, Niu P, Yang B, Wu H, Wang W, Song H, Huang B, Zhu N, Bi Y, Ma X, Zhan F, Wang L, Hu T, Zhou H, Hu Z, Zhou W, Zhao L, Chen J, Meng Y, Wang J, Lin Y, Yuan J, Xie Z, Ma J, Liu WJ, Wang D, Xu W, Holmes EC, Gao GF, Wu G, Chen W, Shi W, Tan W. Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020;395:565–574. - PMC - PubMed