Pediatric COVID-19 patients in South Brazil show abundant viral mRNA and strong specific anti-viral responses.
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Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34824230.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-021-27120-y and PMC identifier 8617275.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
COVID-19 manifests as a milder disease in children than adults, but the underlying mechanisms are not fully characterized. Here we assess the difference in cellular or humoral immune responses of pediatric and adult COVID-19 patients to see if these factors contribute to the severity dichotomy. Children's non-specific immune profile is dominated by naive lymphocytes and HLA-DR<sup>high</sup>CX3CR1<sup>low</sup> dendritic cells; meanwhile, children show strong specific antibody and T cell responses for viral structural proteins, with their T cell responses differing from adults by having weaker CD8<sup>+</sup>TNF<sup>+</sup> T cells responses to S peptide pool but stronger responses to N and M peptide pools. Finally, viral mRNA is more abundant in pediatric patients. Our data thus support a scenario in which SARS-CoV-2 infected children contribute to transmission yet are less susceptible to COVID-19 symptoms due to strong and differential responses to the virus.
Medical subject headings
- Antibodies, Viral
- COVID-19
- Immunity, Humoral
- RNA, Viral
- SARS-CoV-2
- Vaccines, Synthetic