Cienciaes.com: Antibodies and the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

by time news

2020-04-20 18:45:01

the epidemic COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 may be having the effect of increasing interest in how our immune system reacts to fight against this microorganism. The differences between people in the severity of this infection are striking. While some, usually young, but also people of a certain age, have been able to get it without suffering any symptoms, others have died from this infection.

The details of why these differences are not known, but they are undoubtedly related to the functioning of the immune system of each person. What type of immune system genes we have inherited and what is their state of functioning are important factors that can determine whether or not we will survive the disease. Another factor is age. Just as older people generally run at a slower speed than young people, something similar can happen with the response given by the immune system against infection by SARS-CoV-2. This response can be very effective and rapid, stopping the infection at its inception or, conversely, being ineffective and unable to stop it until it has already caused serious illness. These differences are decisive.

Probably, the idea we have about how infection by this virus is fought by our immune system contemplates that it invariably ends up generating antibodies that neutralize the virus. These antibodies would act by binding to it and preventing it from binding to the protein in the cells that it needs to enter and infect them. However, recently published data by researchers at Shanghai University in China indicates that this is not true.

The researchers studied 175 patients from COVID-19, who suffered only mild symptoms and recovered uneventfully from the infection, and tested their blood for antibodies against the virus protein needed for the virus to bind to and infect cells. This protein is called protein S (from English spike, spike) and is part of the outer crown of this and other coronaviruses, among which are the SARS-CoV-1, cause of the epidemic of SARS in 2002-2003, and the MERS-CoV, which caused another epidemic outbreak in the Middle East in 2012.

The results of this study indicated that, in these patients, antibodies to protein S appeared in the blood 10 to 15 days after the onset of infection. However, older patients generated significantly higher antibody levels than younger patients. In fact, 10 of the youngest patients lacked detectable antibodies, despite having successfully overcome the disease.

What could these differences be due to? A phenomenon that is not always considered in the fight of the immune system against infections is that, on occasions, it is capable of controlling an infection before the lymphocytes in charge of producing the antibodies, the so-called B lymphocytes, detect the enemy. If the B lymphocytes do not detect enough molecules of the microorganism, they do not react against it by generating antibodies. If the innate immune system, which reacts first against infection of any kind, is able to clear the infection before it progresses too far, the B lymphocytes will be unable to detect foreign molecules from the virus and will not produce antibodies against it.

The fact that younger patients produce fewer antibodies could indicate that the innate immune system of young people is more effective than that of older people and, in many cases, may be enough to stop the infection completely in its early stages. and prevent the generation of antibodies. Older people, in general, would no longer have such an effective innate immune system and would need the adaptive immune system to start up, which allows the generation of antibodies, to end the infection. Those that do not have a good adaptive immune system either, unfortunately, will probably succumb to the infection unless it can be treated clinically.

These data suggest that many young people who have survived the disease without symptoms will test negative for coronavirus antibodies to determine if they have had the disease. This will have to be taken into account to estimate how many people have actually overcome the disease and how many, therefore, may be immune to it in one way or another. Knowing this in the different countries is important to decide on the measures that will gradually end the confinement and to estimate the probability of outbreaks of the disease.

The researchers also reveal that the antibodies generated against the virus SARS-CoV-2 are not effective in neutralizing the virus SARS-CoV-1. This has been corroborated in another recent study, in which the researchers revealed that the S protein of the virus SARS-CoV-2 binds to cell protein that is also used by viruses SARS– CoV-1 y MERS-CoV to infect cells with more force than the S protein of these. In addition, the scientists verify that a diverse set of antibodies, capable of neutralizing and preventing the infection of these last two viruses, are not effective in preventing the infection of the virus. SARS– CoV-2.

These data, in my opinion, are not good news. First, they indicate that SARS-CoV-2 is a fairly effective virus when it comes to infecting cells. Second, they indicate that the S protein can vary significantly to escape antibody activity, allowing one to envision the generation of mutants of SARS-CoV-2 that will be able to infect again even those who have overcome the disease and have generated antibodies against a first variant of the virus, and also those who have been vaccinated, once the vaccine is available (if it is). However, we still have a lot to learn about this new virus, and that knowledge will almost certainly prove an effective weapon against it.

Referencias: (1) Wang et al., Structural and Functional Basis of SARS-CoV-2 Entry by Using Human ACE2, Cell (2020),

(2) Fan Wu et al. (2020). Neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in a COVID-19 recovered patient cohort and their implications.

Jorge Laborda, April 21, 2020

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