Long-term immunological memory to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is crucial for the development of population-level immunity, which is the aim of vaccination approaches. Reports on rapidly decreasing antibody titers have led to questions regarding the efficacy of humoral immunity alone. The relevance of T cell memory after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains unclear. Here, we investigated SARS-CoV-2 antibody and T cell responses in matched samples of COVID-19 convalescent individuals up to six months post-infection. Longitudinal analysis revealed decreasing and stable spike- and nucleocapsid-specific antibody responses, respectively. In contrast, functional T cell responses remained robust, and even increased, in both frequency and intensity. Single peptide mapping of T cell diversity over time identified open reading frame-independent, dominant T cell epitopes mediating long-term SARS-CoV-2 T cell responses. Identification of these epitopes may be fundamental for COVID-19 vaccine design. Longitudinal analysis identifies SARS-CoV-2 peptide targets of durable memory T cell responses in COVID-19 convalescent individuals.
【초록키워드】 COVID-19, coronavirus disease, SARS-CoV-2, Coronavirus disease 2019, Efficacy, coronavirus, vaccination, Immunity, spike, peptide, severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus, Immunological memory, Epitopes, Humoral immunity, T cell, SARS-CoV-2 antibody, nucleocapsid, response, T cell responses, Antibody titer, target, respiratory, epitope, longitudinal, T cell epitope, T cell response, memory T cell, Antibody titers, longitudinal analysis, Frequency, Open reading frame, Analysis, identification, open, intensity, Post-infection, acute respiratory syndrome, acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, approaches, report, convalescent individuals, T cell memory, memory T, COVID-19 vaccine design, dominant, responses, Cell, nucleocapsid-specific antibody, robust, convalescent individual, identify, investigated, remained, functional, question, 【제목키워드】 COVID-19, antibody kinetics, long-term immune response, convalescent individual, SARS-CoV-2 peptide,