Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is an emerging virus responsible for the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. With the increasingly high uptake of the different vaccinations available, efforts are being made worldwide to understand and compare the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated and COVID-19 recovered individuals including the impact of T cell immunity.
Screening of Spike derived peptides presented by one of the most common HLA, HLA-A*02:01, in vaccinated and COVID-19 recovered individuals identified novel epitopes with a different pattern of immunogenicity between the two cohorts. In vitro peptide stimulation revealed T cell-mediated cross-reactivity towards an immunodominant epitope, and it’s known mutants with crystal structure analyses to provide the molecular basis for these interactions.
We solved the structure of several spike peptide structures presented by HLA-A*02:01 molecule as well as their stability to understand the molecular determinant of immunogenicity. In addition, we also determine the structure of T cell receptors in complex with HLA-A*02:01-spike to understand how T cell can cope with mutation arising in variant of concerns.
This study contributes significantly to our understanding of the role of T cell immunity on COVID-19 and will help the fight against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.