T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 in unexposed South African women

Marta C Nunes; Michael J Johnson; Gaurav Kwatra; Adriana Weinberg; Shabir A Madhi

doi:10.12688/gatesopenres.13373.2

T-cell responses to SARS-CoV-2 in unexposed South African women

Gates Open Res. 2022 Jul 13:5:150. doi: 10.12688/gatesopenres.13373.2. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Marta C Nunes^{1

2}, Michael J Johnson³, Gaurav Kwatra^{1

2}, Adriana Weinberg³, Shabir A Madhi^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ South African Medical Research Council, Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
² Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation, South African Research Chair Initiative in Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
³ Department of Pediatrics, Medicine and Pathology, University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, USA.

Abstract

Background: A potential explanation for the fact that the high rate of infection of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa did not translate into high rates of severe illness and death may be the presence of cross-reactive immunity induced by common cold coronaviruses (CCoV). Methods: We used SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools and whole virus antigen to stimulate peripheral blood mononuclear cells collected pre-2020 from South African women. Dual-colour FluoroSpot assay was used to measure interferon gamma (IFNγ) and interleukin 2 (IL2) production. Results: Among the 97 study participants, IFNγ responses were observed in 29.9% of the women and IL2 among 39.2%. Overall, 51.6% of women demonstrated response to at least one stimulant. Conclusion: We demonstrate the presence of cross-reactive immunity to SARS-CoV-2, which might have been induced by past exposure to CCoV.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; cell mediated immunity; interferon gamma; interleukin 2.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.16699963.v1