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Investigators from Sweden have reported on SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells and long-term immune protection against COVID-19. The authors examined the function and phenotype of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in a total of 206 people consisting of unexposed individuals, exposed family members, and individuals with acute or convalescent COVID-19.

Allergens are characterized by two important properties; the first being the allergenicity and the second being the allergenic activity. The later represents the capacity of an allergen to induce allergic inflammation, a process that can be dependent or independent of IgE activity. As a result, the IgE binding property of an allergen only evaluates a part of the allergenic activity...

Joyner et al., studied a cohort of 5000 participants, 81% with severe or life-threatening COVID-19% with a high risk of severe progression, who received convalescent plasma therapy. They reported a very low frequency (<1%) of severe adverse events with a 7-day mortality rate of 14.9%. Despite, the study not being designed to determine the efficacy of convalescent plasma therapy...

Yuting Ma presented data from a murine stress model, that demonstrated that stressed mice have a lower capacity to induce viral-specific T cell immunity and lower B cell activation than non-stressed mice. She further demonstrated a stress-induced effect of stress on the gut bacteriome and virome, as well as metabolic dysfunction. Factors that can all contribute to dampened immunity.  

Hoffman et al., demonstrated that (hydroxy)chloroquine inhibited viral entry in Vero (kidney-derived) cell-lines that did not express TMPRSS2, but had no inhibitory effect on Vero cells-lines that expressed TMPRSS2. Additionally, (hydroxy)chloroquine had limited effect on SARS-CoV-2 entry into TMPRSS2-expressing lung cell-lines.

The South African Immunology Society (SAIS) in collaboration with Immunopaedia hosted a webinar on "Antibody responses and serology testing" which featured talks by by Penny Moore: "Can we characterised immunity to COVID-19" and Elizabeth Mayne: "COVID-19 serology testing in SA - ready for prime time?". Some highlights of Penny's talk include the description of early SARS-CoV-2 antibody (Ab) kinetics.

This week we highlight a talk by Professor Ulrich Blank entitled “IgE and its affinity IgE receptor as a pharmacological target”. In the first part of his presentation, Professor Ulrich gave a general overview of IgE and its high affinity receptor in the context of type I hypersensitivity reactions. He then described the different therapeutic strategies developed or in development that target IgE and its receptor interactions...

Using a humanized mouse model and B cells from COVID-19 convalescent individuals, Hansen et al., describe the discovery of two SARS-CoV2-specific antibodies: REGN10933 and REGN10987 that are currently being tested for immunotherapeutic potential against COVID-19 (NCT04426695; NCT04425629). Both antibodies non-competitively bind to SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain...

Based on the heterogeneity of COVID-19 pathology, Sacha and colleagues hypothesised that cytokines such as IL-6, IL-8, IL-1β and TNF could potentially predict disease severity and outcome. Sacha demonstrated that IL-6, IL-8 and TNF, individually and when combined in a model, correlate with various aspects of disease severity and survival outcome. Based on these results, targeting these cytokines...

Nguyen et al. published a review article describing the use of immunoglobulins as a treatment for COVID-19. As COVID-19 cases rise at a rapid rate, there is great need to explore pre-existing treatments while novel treatments and vaccines are being developed. Such pre-existing treatments include Intravenous Immunoglobulins and Hyperimmune globulins. However, production of viral antibodies have been shown...