{"doi":"10.1101/2021.09.24.461732","title":"SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific memory B cells express markers of durable immunity after non-severe COVID-19 but not after severe disease","abstract":"ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 infection elicits a robust B cell response, resulting in the generation of long-lived plasma cells and memory B cells. Here, we aimed to determine the effect of COVID-19 severity on the memory B cell response and characterize changes in the memory B cell compartment between recovery and five months post-symptom onset. Using high-parameter spectral flow cytometry, we analyzed the phenotype of memory B cells with reactivity against the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein or the spike receptor binding domain (RBD) in recovered individuals who had been hospitalized with non-severe (n=8) or severe (n=5) COVID-19. One month after symptom onset, a substantial proportion of spike-specific IgG + B cells showed an activated phenotype. In individuals who experienced non-severe disease, spike-specific IgG + B cells showed increased expression of markers associated with durable B cell memory, including T-bet, FcRL5, and CD11c, which was not observed after severe disease. Five months post-symptom onset, the majority of spike-specific memory B cells had a resting phenotype and the percentage of spike-specific T-bet + IgG + memory B cells decreased to baseline levels. Collectively, our results suggest that the memory B cell response elicited during non-severe COVID-19 may be of higher quality than the response after severe disease.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":215574,"datarank":0.29188652235829704,"base_score":1.9459101490553132,"endowment":1.9459101490553132,"self_citation_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.29188652235829704,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":6,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9648,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":697514,"name":"Kathleen Clarke","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290730,"name":"S. Jake Gonzales","orcid":"0000-0002-6621-4103","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":675834,"name":"Angelene M. Cantwell","orcid":"0000-0001-5122-6112","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445288,"name":"Rolando Garza","orcid":"0000-0003-2764-7800","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":661931,"name":"Gabriel Catano","orcid":"0000-0001-6047-2286","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":696956,"name":"Robin Tragus","orcid":"0000-0001-6980-9164","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103440,"name":"Thomas F. Patterson","orcid":"0000-0002-9513-7127","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290733,"name":"Sebastiaan Bol","orcid":"0000-0002-3843-6657","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290734,"name":"Evelien M. Bunnik","orcid":"0000-0003-4003-3053","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":290731,"name":"Raphael A. Reyes","orcid":"0000-0002-2234-4758","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:52:55.971300Z","pmid":"34611662","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}