Frontiers in Immunology (Jul 2021)

Impaired Priming of SARS-CoV-2-Specific Naive CD8+ T Cells in Older Subjects

  • Eleonora Gallerani,
  • Davide Proietto,
  • Beatrice Dallan,
  • Marco Campagnaro,
  • Salvatore Pacifico,
  • Valentina Albanese,
  • Erika Marzola,
  • Peggy Marconi,
  • Antonella Caputo,
  • Victor Appay,
  • Riccardo Gavioli,
  • Francesco Nicoli

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021.693054
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12

Abstract

Read online

Advanced age is associated with severe symptoms and death upon SARS-CoV-2 infection. Virus-specific CD8+ T-cell responses have shown to be protective toward critical COVID-19 manifestations, suggesting that suboptimal cellular immunity may contribute to the age-pattern of the disease. The induction of a CD8+ T-cell response against an emerging pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 relies on the activation of naive T cells. To investigate whether the primary CD8+ T-cell response against this virus is defective in advanced age, we used an in vitro approach to prime SARS-CoV-2-specific naive CD8+ T cells from healthy, unexposed donors of different age groups. Compared to younger adults, older individuals display a poor SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell priming capacity in terms of both magnitude and quality of the response. In addition, older subjects recognize a lower number of epitopes. Our results implicate that immune aging is associated with altered primary SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T-cell responses.

Keywords