Study: Killer cells, effective against even the most infectious species of COVID-19

Recent studies have shown that certain variants of coronarys can be stronger than immune protection of antibodies and vaccines, Reuters writes.

But antibodies, which block coronary from connecting to human cells, are only part of history, according to a study conducted by scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

The second part of the story consists of T lymphocytes, and they're also called “Killing T”, because they remove infected cells and thus along with antibodies prevent the most severe forms of the disease.

Scientists analyzed the blood of 30 people who had been recovered from COVID-19 before more infectious new versions appeared.

Of these samples, they identified a specific form of T cells (lyphocit T CD8, which is the technical name), that is active against the virus, reports the France Press agency.

They later studied whether T cells would be able to recognize three major, most contagious variants of SARS-CoV-2, respectively B.1.1.7 that appeared in Great Britain, then B.1,351 identified in South Africa and version B. 1.1. 248 Brazil.

Each of these variants carries a mutation in the protein region C, “lost” on the surface of the virus that attacks human cells, especially in the case of version B.1.351.

Three more infectious variants have proved to be more dangerous for antibodies, which are harder to recognize.

In the case of coronary, antibodies are linked to “lost” to prevent the infection of the virus in cells and T lymphocytes or T cells are responsible for the “suicide” of the already infected cells.

Scientists found that T cells' answers were largely preserved and that they could recognize all mutations in studied variants, which is not the case with antibodies.

Our data, but the results of other groups also show that T cells in response to COVIDD-19 in individuals infected with the first variants of the coronary can fully recognize the major new variants from Britain, South Africa and Brazil”, Andrew said. Red from NIAID and Johns Hopkins University Medical School, who conducted the study.

This study complements the previous one, which also showed that T-cell protection had been preserved in other variants of the coronary.

Scientists from NIAID believe new studies are needed to confirm their findings.

Their work was published at “Open Forum Infectious Disease”, but has not yet passed the assessments of independent experts.