Researchers Investigate Immune Response To SARS-CoV-2 Variants, Find New Mutations Allow Virus To Evade Antibodies

A team of researchers has assessed the effectiveness of the T-cell immune response to 11 variants of SARS-CoV-2 and used their results to develop the T-cell Covid-19 Atlas portal (T-CoV).

The findings, published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, indicates that the continuing emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 mutations allows the virus to spread more effectively and evade the antibodies.

However, it is unclear whether new strains are capable of evading T-cell immunity, one of the body’s main lines of defence against Covid-19, said the researchers, including Stepan Nersisyan, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology at HSE University in Moscow, Russia.

The development of a T-cell immune response is largely governed by genetic factors, including variations in the genes of the major histocompatibility complex (HLA), the researchers said.

Each HLA gene variant has a corresponding molecule that identifies a specific set of peptides (protein) of a virus. There are a huge number of such gene variations, and each person has a unique set of them, added the findings.