Persistent humoral and CD4+ TH cell immunity after mild SARS-COV-2 infection-the CoNAN long-term study.

Schnizer C, Andreas N, Vivas W, Kamradt T, Baier M, Kiehntopf M, Glöckner S, Scherag A, Löffler B, Kolanos S, Guerra J, Pletz MW, Weis S (2023) Persistent humoral and CD4+ TH cell immunity after mild SARS-COV-2 infection-the CoNAN long-term study. Front Immunol 13, 1095129.

Abstract

Understanding persistent cellular and humoral immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 will be of major importance to terminate the ongoing pandemic. Here, we assessed long-term immunity in individuals with mild COVID-19 up to 1 year after a localized SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. CoNAN was a longitudinal population-based cohort study performed 1.5 months, 6 months, and 12 months after a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in a rural German community. We performed a time series of five different IgG immunoassays assessing SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses on serum samples from individuals that had been tested positive after a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and in control individuals who had a negative PCR result. These analyses were complemented with the determination of spike-antigen specific TH cell responses in the same individuals. All infected participants were presented as asymptomatic or mild cases. Participants initially tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection either with PCR, antibody testing, or both had a rapid initial decline in the serum antibody levels in all serological tests but showed a persisting TH cell immunity as assessed by the detection of SARS-CoV-2 specificity of TH cells for up to 1 year after infection. Our data support the notion of a persistent T-cell immunity in mild and asymptomatic cases of SARS-CoV-2 up to 1 year after infection. We show that antibody titers decline over 1 year, but considering several test results, complete seroreversion is rare.

Leibniz-HKI-Autor*innen

Wolfgang Vivas
Sebastian Weis

Identifier

doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.1095129

PMID: 36713390