COVID-19: cross-immunity of viral epitopes may influence severity of infection and immune response

摘要

Representative indicators of the findings by Shrock et al.,1 suggesting significant overlap between SARS-CoV-2 proteins with other coronaviruses in human patients. a Box plots illustrating the number of peptide hits from the indicated coronaviruses in confirmed COVID-19 patients and pre-COVID-19 era controls (negative for SARS-CoV-2). Cross-reactivity toward SARS-CoV-2 peptides was observed in pre-COVID-19 era samples, while COVID-19 patients also exhibited cross-reactivity with other common hCoVs, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV. b Bar graphs depicting the average number of peptides derived from SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and each of the four most common hCoVs significantly enriched per sample following IgG immunoprecipitation in the experiments of Shrock et al.1 The ORF1 region of SARS-CoV-2 exhibited greatest comparative matches between patients diagnosed with COVID-19 versus those that tested negative, indicating a potentially large degree of overlap between previous CoV and SARS-CoV-2 infection, whereby previous CoV perhaps reduced the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Figure adapted from Shrock et al.,1 with permission