Longitudinal single-cell analysis of SARS-CoV-2-reactive B cells uncovers persistence of early-formed, antigen-specific clones.
JCI Insight
; 8(1)2023 01 10.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36445762
ABSTRACT
Understanding persistence and evolution of B cell clones after COVID-19 infection and vaccination is crucial for predicting responses against emerging viral variants and optimizing vaccines. Here, we collected longitudinal samples from patients with severe COVID-19 every third to seventh day during hospitalization and every third month after recovery. We profiled their antigen-specific immune cell dynamics by combining single-cell RNA-Seq, Cellular Indexing of Transcriptomes and Epitopes by Sequencing (CITE-Seq), and B cell receptor-Seq (BCR-Seq) with oligo-tagged antigen baits. While the proportion of Spike receptor binding domain-specific memory B cells (MBC) increased from 3 months after infection, the other Spike- and Nucleocapsid-specific B cells remained constant. All patients showed ongoing class switching and sustained affinity maturation of antigen-specific cells, and affinity maturation was not significantly increased early after vaccine. B cell analysis revealed a polyclonal response with limited clonal expansion; nevertheless, some clones detected during hospitalization, as plasmablasts, persisted for up to 1 year, as MBC. Monoclonal antibodies derived from persistent B cell families increased their binding and neutralization breadth and started recognizing viral variants by 3 months after infection. Overall, our findings provide important insights into the clonal evolution and dynamics of antigen-specific B cell responses in longitudinally sampled patients infected with COVID-19.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
SARS-CoV-2
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
JCI Insight
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Publication country:
EEUU
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS DA AMERICA
/
EUA
/
UNITED STATES
/
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/
US
/
USA