ABOVE: An artist's interpretation of a T cell targeting SARS-CoV-2
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In May, researchers showed that people with mild forms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, have circulating T cells that respond to the virus. Now, in a Science Immunology study published last week (June 26), a collaborating research team has determined that people who are sick enough with COVID-19 to be hospitalized in the intensive care unit also make SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells. In both studies, the researchers found that a subset of healthy, unexposed people also had some of these T cells that react to the virus, perhaps due to previous exposures to other coronaviruses that cause symptoms of the common cold.
The latest study provides more solid evidence that there are SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells that are induced by the infection, says Antonio Bertoletti, who studies T cells at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore and ...
