In a new study, scientists at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have revealed that most T cell epitopes known to be targeted upon natural infection are seemingly unaffected by current SARS-CoV-2 variants.
In their latest research, the team compiled and analysed data from 18 immunological studies of T cell responses involving over 850 recovered COVID-19 patients from across four continents who are well-distributed in age, gender, disease severity and blood collection time. They demonstrated that T cells in these patients targeted fragments (epitopes) of almost all of the virus’ proteins, including the spike protein that is a main target of many existing vaccines. As an important finding, based on analysis of over 850,000 SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences from around the world, most of these epitopes appeared to be unaffected by the current variants of concern.
“We focused specifically on recovered COVID-19 patients as their immune responses are representative of effective responses against the virus,” said Prof. Ahmed Abdul QUADEER, Research Assistant Professor from the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, who is the first author of the research.
bioengineer.org/hkusts-meta...
Cell Reports Medicine. Research Paper:
