{"doi":"10.1172/jci145476","title":"SARS-CoV-2–specific CD8+ T cell responses in convalescent COVID-19 individuals","abstract":"Characterization of the T cell response in individuals who recover from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is critical to understanding its contribution to protective immunity. A multiplexed peptide-MHC tetramer approach was used to screen 408 SARS-CoV-2 candidate epitopes for CD8+ T cell recognition in a cross-sectional sample of 30 coronavirus disease 2019 convalescent individuals. T cells were evaluated using a 28-marker phenotypic panel, and findings were modelled against time from diagnosis and from humoral and inflammatory responses. There were 132 SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T cell responses detected across 6 different HLAs, corresponding to 52 unique epitope reactivities. CD8+ T cell responses were detected in almost all convalescent individuals and were directed against several structural and nonstructural target epitopes from the entire SARS-CoV-2 proteome. A unique phenotype for SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells was observed that was distinct from other common virus-specific T cells detected in the same cross-sectional sample and characterized by early differentiation kinetics. Modelling demonstrated a coordinated and dynamic immune response characterized by a decrease in inflammation, increase in neutralizing antibody titer, and differentiation of a specific CD8+ T cell response. Overall, T cells exhibited distinct differentiation into stem cell and transitional memory states (subsets), which may be key to developing durable protection.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Investigation","year":2021,"id":145978,"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":278,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.955,"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":227513,"name":"Andrew D. Redd","orcid":"0000-0003-4651-1423","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227514,"name":"Evan M. Bloch","orcid":"0000-0001-8181-9517","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272000,"name":"Tania S. Bonny","orcid":"0000-0002-6530-1045","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553539,"name":"Hermi Sumatoh","orcid":"0000-0001-5597-2307","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":554824,"name":"Faris Kairi","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553540,"name":"Daniel Carbajo","orcid":"0000-0001-8779-7697","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":554825,"name":"Brian Abel","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":272540,"name":"Evan W. Newell","orcid":"0000-0002-2889-243X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553541,"name":"Maria Bettinotti","orcid":"0000-0003-0343-275X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227504,"name":"Sarah E. Benner","orcid":"0000-0002-8336-2976","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":246863,"name":"Eshan U. Patel","orcid":"0000-0003-2174-5004","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227505,"name":"Kirsten Littlefield","orcid":"0000-0002-6019-0673","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108425,"name":"Oliver Laeyendecker","orcid":"0000-0002-6429-4760","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227512,"name":"Shmuel Shoham","orcid":"0000-0001-7276-7786","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227511,"name":"David Sullivan","orcid":"0000-0003-0319-0578","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107237,"name":"Arturo Casadevall","orcid":"0000-0002-9402-9167","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227501,"name":"Andrew Pekosz","orcid":"0000-0003-3248-1761","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553542,"name":"Alessandra Nardin","orcid":"0000-0001-6832-5862","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":432350,"name":"Michael Fehlings","orcid":"0000-0002-0384-8408","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227515,"name":"Aaron A.R. Tobian","orcid":"0000-0002-0517-3766","position":20,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227510,"name":"Thomas C. Quinn","orcid":"0000-0002-0404-1315","position":21,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":553538,"name":"Hassen Kared","orcid":"0000-0002-8220-997X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:42:18.947086Z","pmid":"33427749","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":[]}