Immunity to SARS-CoV-2 up to 15 months after infection

Information concerning the longevity of immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) following natural infection may have considerable implications for durability of immunity induced by vaccines. Here, we monitored the SARS-CoV-2 specific immune response in convalescent coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) patients up to 15 months after symptoms onset. Following a peak at day 15-28 post-infection, the IgG antibody response and plasma neutralizing titers gradually decreased over time but stabilized after 6 months. Compared to G614, plasma neutralizing titers were more than 8-fold lower against variants of concern. SARS-CoV-2-specific memory B and T cells persisted in the majority of patients up to 15 months although a significant decrease in specific T cells was observed between 6 and 15 months. The data suggest that antiviral specific immunity especially memory B cells in COVID-19 convalescent patients is long-lasting, but some variants of concern may at least partially escape the neutralizing activity of plasma antibodies.

MARCOTTE Harold;  PIRALLA Antonio;  ZUO Fanglei;  DU Likun;  CASSANITI Irene;  WAN Hui;  KUMAGAI BRAESH Makiko;  ANDRELL Juni;  PERCIVALLE Elena;  SAMMARTINO Josè;  WANG Yating;  VLACHIOTIS Stelios;  ATTEVALL Janine;  BERGAMI Federica;  FERRARI Alessandro;  COLANERI Marta;  VECCHIA Marco;  SAMBO Margherita;  ZUCCARO Valentina;  ASPERGES Erika;  BRUNO Raffaele;  OGGIONNI Tiberio;  MELONI Federica;  ABOLHASSANI Hassan;  BERTOGLIO Federico;  SCHUBERT Maren;  CALZOLAI Luigi;  VARANI Luca;  HUST Michael;  XUE Yintong;  HAMMARSTRÖM Lennart;  BALDANTI Fausto;  PAN-HAMMARSTRÖM Qiang; 

2023-07-31

CELL PRESS

JRC126784

2589-0042 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422200013X,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126784,   

10.1016/j.isci.2022.103743 (online),