Tag : Antibodies

Washington: Considering the speculation about whether the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine can reawaken previous antibody responses and pave the way to a universal coronavirus vaccine, new research on a COVID-19 vaccine's antibody response suggests that the immune system's history with other coronaviruses, along with those behind the common cold, influences a patient's response, as per the study published in Cell Reports. Led by scientists at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), part of City of Hope, and Northern Arizona University (NAU), a research team found that the vaccine generates antibodies that target regions of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that are unique to the new virus, while also targeting regions of the protein that are shared or conserved among many coronaviruses. What's more, the antibody response to these different coronaviruses appears to follow different paths. Over the course of 140 days following vaccination, the response to common cold coronaviruses started early but diminished over time. The response to SARS-CoV-2 continued to get stronger and stronger over time. "The findings could help fine-tune the design of future vaccines or new monoclonal antibody treatments, perhaps leading to a universal coronavirus vaccine," said John Altin, Ph.D., senior author and assistant professor in TGen's Pathogen Genomics and Integrated Cancer Genomics Divisions. "Even if the response to the conserved regions is just a small part of the vaccine's overall protection, it may be a response that could be leveraged in future vaccines against future variants of the COVID-19 virus," he added. Altin and colleagues are now looking more closely at the antibodies that target the two conserved regions they identified in their study to ...