Researchers identify host-pathogen antibody signature associated with severe COVID-19

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SARS-2 makes a small proportion of people very sick, with a similarly small but significant proportion of individuals going on to develop persistent symptoms such as long COVID.

Researchers at the MRC Human Genetics Unit, in the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, set out to map immune responses to the virus to understand if different patterns of immunity might explain who gets sick and why.

After coming up with a new method to map out which parts of the virus the immune system recognises, they collaborated with multiple researchers across the University of Edinburgh as well as clinicians across the UK working in the NHS at the height of the pandemic.

The researchers discovered that an unusual kind of immune response to a specific part of a protein called the ‘Membrane’ protein was an extremely strong predictor of severity both in the acute setting and in long COVID.

The Membrane protein is the most abundant protein in the SARS-2 virus with approximately 20 times more Membrane proteins than Spike proteins. However, most research has focussed on the immune response to the SARS-2 Spike protein.

This new study, published by Elife, suggests these Membrane proteins are also extremely important.

Follow on work is ongoing to understand the exact mechanisms responsible. We think this work is important because alongside helping to predict who is at risk it simultaneously provides a clue as to why, and gives us a new target to prevent or treat both acute and long COVID-related immune dysfunction.

Patrick Kearns

Links

Read the full paper on eLife (external link)