{"doi":"10.1101/2022.01.30.478400","title":"Clonal dynamics of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells in children and adults with COVID-19","abstract":"SUMMARY Children infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) develop less severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) than adults. The mechanisms for the age-specific differences and the implications for infection-induced immunity are beginning to be uncovered. We show by longitudinal multimodal analysis that SARS-CoV-2 leaves a small footprint in the circulating T cell compartment in children with mild/asymptomatic COVID-19 compared to adult household contacts with the same disease severity who had more evidence of systemic T cell interferon activation, cytotoxicity and exhaustion. Children harbored diverse polyclonal SARS-CoV- 2-specific naïve T cells whereas adults harbored clonally expanded SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells. More naïve interferon-activated CD4 + T cells were recruited into the memory compartment and recovery was associated with the development of robust CD4 + memory T cell responses in adults but not children. These data suggest that rapid clearance of SARS-CoV-2 in children may compromise their cellular immunity and ability to resist reinfection. HIGHLIGHTS Children have diverse polyclonal SARS-CoV-2-specific naïve T cells Adults have clonally expanded exhausted SARS-CoV-2-specific memory T cells Interferon-activated naïve T cells differentiate into memory T cells in adults but not children Adults but not children develop robust memory T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":300894,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9576,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":237492,"name":"Katherine Jackson","orcid":"0000-0002-9952-7069","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":402123,"name":"Chansavath Phetsouphanh","orcid":"0000-0001-6617-5995","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":535011,"name":"John Zaunders","orcid":"0000-0002-5912-5989","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":527494,"name":"José Alquicira-Hernández","orcid":"0000-0002-9049-7780","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":57133,"name":"Seyhan Yazar","orcid":"0000-0003-0994-6196","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":883717,"name":"Stephanie Ruiz‐Diaz","orcid":"0000-0003-4871-5980","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":225676,"name":"Mandeep Singh","orcid":"0000-0002-6998-3805","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":883718,"name":"Rama Dhenni","orcid":"0000-0001-9782-6666","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":883719,"name":"Wunna Kyaw","orcid":"0000-0003-1509-8656","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236497,"name":"Fiona Tea","orcid":"0000-0002-0451-6296","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":884203,"name":"Vera Merheb","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":884204,"name":"Fiona X. 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