Advanced age is associated with severe symptoms and death upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. Virus-specific CD8 + T-cell responses have shown to be protective toward critical COVID-19 manifestations, suggesting that suboptimal cellular immunity may contribute to the age-pattern of the disease. The induction of a CD8 + T-cell response against an emerging pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 relies on the activation of naive T cells. To investigate whether the primary CD8 + T-cell response against this virus is defective in advanced age, we used an in vitro approach to prime SARS-CoV-2-specific naive CD8 + T cells from healthy, unexposed donors of different age groups. Compared to younger adults, older individuals display a poor SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell priming capacity in terms of both magnitude and quality of the response. In addition, older subjects recognize a lower number of epitopes. Our results implicate that immune aging is associated with altered primary SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8 + T-cell responses.
【저자키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Epitopes, cellular immunity, Immune aging, CD8+ T cells, naïve T cells, primary responses, 【초록키워드】 COVID-19, T cells, SARS-COV-2 infection, T-cell Response, in vitro, virus, CD8, immune, Adults, T cell, pathogen, death, Manifestations, age, T-cell, Critical, T-cell responses, Protective, Donor, Older, Activation, individual, advanced age, priming, approach, shown, healthy, addition, the disease, contribute, recognize, magnitude, groups, severe symptom, older subject, 【제목키워드】 CD8, Impaired,