SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)-specific T cell and B cell responses in convalescent rheumatoid arthritis: Monozygotic twins pair case observation.
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Arruda LCM, Gaballa A, Da Silva Rodrigues R, Makower B, Uhlin M
Scand. J. Immunol. 95 (5) e13151 [2022-05-00; online 2022-03-02]
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients present higher risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19), and proper management of the disease in this population requires a better understanding of how the immune system controls the virus. We analyzed the T cell and B cell phenotypes, and their repertoire in a pair of monozygotic twins with RA mismatched for COVID-19 infection. Twin- was not infected, while Twin+ was infected and effectively controlled the infection. We found no significant changes on the αβ T cell composition, while γδ T cells and B cells presented considerable expansion of memory population in Twin+ and robust T/B cell responses to several SARS-CoV-2 peptides. T cell receptor β/γ-chain and immunoglobulin heavy chain next-generation sequencing depicted a remarkable higher diversity in Twin+ compared with Twin-, despite no significant changes being found in variable/joining family usage. Repertoire overlap analyses showed that, although being identical twins, very few clones were shared between them, indicating that COVID-19 may lead to deep changes on the immune cell repertoire in RA patients. Altogether, our results indicate that RA patients may develop robust and persistent COVID-19-specific T/B cell responses; γδ T cells and B cells may play a key role in the management of COVID-19 in RA, and the infection may lead to a profound reshaping of immune cell receptor specificities.
PubMed 35212005
DOI 10.1111/sji.13151
Crossref 10.1111/sji.13151