SARS-CoV-2-Specific T Cell Responses Are Stronger in Children With Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome Compared to Children With..., 2022, Conway et al

Full title: SARS-CoV-2-Specific T Cell Responses Are Stronger in Children With Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome Compared to Children With Uncomplicated SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Background: Despite similar rates of infection, adults and children have markedly different morbidity and mortality related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). Compared to adults, children have infrequent severe manifestations of acute infection but are uniquely at risk for the rare and often severe Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) following infection. We hypothesized that these differences in presentation are related to differences in the magnitude and/or antigen specificity of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell (CST) responses between adults and children. We therefore set out to measure the CST response in convalescent adults versus children with and without MIS-C following SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods: CSTs were expanded from blood collected from convalescent children and adults post SARS-CoV-2 infection and evaluated by intracellular flow cytometry, surface markers, and cytokine production following stimulation with SARS-CoV-2-specific peptides. Presence of serum/plasma antibody to spike and nucleocapsid was measured using the luciferase immunoprecipitation systems (LIPS) assay.

Findings: Twenty-six of 27 MIS-C patients, 7 of 8 non-MIS-C convalescent children, and 13 of 14 adults were seropositive for spike and nucleocapsid antibody. CST responses in MIS-C patients were significantly higher than children with uncomplicated SARS-CoV-2 infection, but weaker than CST responses in convalescent adults.

Interpretation: Age-related differences in the magnitude of CST responses suggest differing post-infectious immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in children compared to adults post uncomplicated infection. Children with MIS-C have CST responses that are stronger than children with uncomplicated SARS-CoV-2 infection and weaker than convalescent adults, despite near uniform seropositivity.

Open access, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2021.793197/full

 

There have been reports this week of a major breakthrough in cancer research, using lab-trained T-cells to keep leukemia in remission. Apparently one of the problems with this therapy is that it can cause pretty severe symptoms like fevers and seizures. I assume they are non-epileptic, so this could be the explanation for "psychogenic" seizures.

So if a therapy that uses nothing but T-cells can cause those symptoms... it seems reasonable, even logical, that this is one of the consequences of activated T-cells, not much need for any more fancy explanations than this, certainly none of the weird stuff about brain plasticity or whatever. This could possibly upend almost everything we know about symptoms of illness, which still have no actual explanation.

This study certainly reinforces this possibility. I haven't seen much in the way of epigenetic studies, seems like a huge untapped field.