학술논문
T‐cell responses in COVID‐19 survivors 6−8 months after infection: A longitudinal cohort study in Pune
Document Type
article
Author
Poonam Suryawanshi; Bhagyashri Patil‐Takbhate; Prachi Athavale; Shahzad Mirza; Anuradha Tripathy; Shubhangi Kanitkar; Sachin Shivnitwar; Madhusudan S. Barthwal; Sachin Dole; Hanumant Chavan; Priyanka Jali; Sujata Pawale; Dhanashree Kakad; Arjun Lal Kakrani; Jitendra Bhawalkar; Madhura Gandhi; Sarika Chaturvedi; Mahesh Karandikar; Srikanth Tripathy
Source
Immunity, Inflammation and Disease, Vol 12, Iss 6, Pp n/a-n/a (2024)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
2050-4527
Abstract
Abstract Background The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) immune response is crucial for disease management, although diminishing immunity raises the possibility of reinfection. Methods We examined the immunological response to SARS‐CoV‐2 in a cohort of convalescent COVID‐19 patients in matched samples collected at 1 and 6−8 months after infection. The peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated from enrolled study participants and flow cytometry analysis was done to assess the lymphocyte subsets of naive, effector, central memory, and effector memory CD4+ or CD8+ T cells in COVID‐19 patients at 1 and 6−8 months after infection. Immunophenotypic characterization of immune cell subsets was performed on individuals who were followed longitudinally for 1 month (n = 44) and 6−8 months (n = 25) after recovery from COVID infection. Results We observed that CD4 +T cells in hospitalized SARS‐CoV‐2 patients tended to decrease, whereas CD8+ T cells steadily recovered after 1 month, while there was a sustained increase in the population of effector T cells and effector memory T cells. Furthermore, COVID‐19 patients showed persistently low B cells and a small increase in the NK cell population. Conclusion Our findings show that T cell responses were maintained at 6−8 months after infection. This opens new pathways for further research into the long‐term effects in COVID‐19 immunopathogenesis.