Antigen specific CD4 T cell responses in humans SARS CoV 2 and beyond: Labroots video

 

Presented By: Prof. Dr. Alexander Scheffold Felix Eppler, PhD Speaker Biography: Prof. Scheffold is the Director of the Institute of Immunology at the Universitätsklinikum, Schleswig-Holstein, and the Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany. Prior to this, he led the Cellular Immunology Group at the Clinic for Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology of the Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, and at the German Rheumatism Research Center (DRFZ) Berlin, Germany. He obtained his PhD in Immunology at the University of Cologne in 1997. As a global product manager, Felix is responsible for the development of applications, new protocols, and products for the MACSQuant® Tyto® Cell Sorter from Miltenyi Biotec. Before joining Miltenyi Biotec in 2018, Felix worked as a research associate at the LIMES Institute, University of Bonn, Germany, with a strong focus on Molecular Immunology and Cell Biology. He obtained his PhD in Molecular Biomedicine from the University in Bonn in 2017. Webinar: Antigen-specific CD4 T cell responses in humans: SARS-CoV-2 and beyond Webinar Abstract: COVID-19 displays high clinical variability, but what determines its severity is unclear. Analysis of antigen-specific T cell responses has contributed to our understanding of the induced immune reaction, and is important in characterizing and potentially predicting the success of vaccination and clinical outcome. Pre-existing T cell memory generated by frequent infections with the related “common cold” Coronavirus (CCCoV) has been hypothesized as a protective mechanism. Prof. Scheffold and his colleagues used a sensitive technology to characterize antigen-reactive T cells directly ex vivo, in combination with closed-system cell sorting on the MACSQuant® Tyto® to enrich and purify antigen-reactive T cells. They were able to characterize SARS-CoV-2‒ and CCCoV-specific T cells from healthy donors and COVID-19 patients using single cell gene expression profiling. Moreover, multiparameter flow cytometry, TCR avidity, and cross-reactivity measurements were used to further deepen the characterization of these cells. The data suggest that pre-existing SARS-CoV-2‒specific memory is not only not protective, but may in fact contribute to the development of severe COVID-19.