Prevalence of COVID-19-associated symptoms during acute infection in relation to SARS-CoV-2-directed humoral and cellular immune responses in a mild-diseased convalescent cohort ?

Objectives: Besides SARS-CoV-2-directed humoral immune responses, T cell responses are indispensable for effective antiviral immunity. Recent data have shown a correlation between COVID-19 symptoms and humoral immune response, but so far, little is known about the association of SARS-CoV-2-directed T cell responses and disease severity. Herein, we evaluated the prevalence of different clinical COVID-19 symptoms in relation to SARS-CoV-2-directed humoral and cellular immune responses.Methods: The severity of eight different symptoms during acute infection were assessed using questionnaires from 193 convalescent individuals and were evaluated in relation to SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels and intensity of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses 2-8 weeks after positive polymerase chain reaction.Results: Although increased IgG serum levels could be associated with severity of most symptoms, no difference in T cell response intensity between different sym ptom severities was observed for the majority of COVID-19 symptoms. However, when analyzing loss of smell or taste and cough, awareness of more severe symptoms was associated with reduced T cell response intensities.Conclusions: These data suggest that rapid virus clearance mediated by SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells prevents severe symptoms of COVID-19.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )

Automated summary

This study evaluated the correlation between different clinical COVID-19 symptoms and SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral and cellular immune responses. The results showed that the intensity of humoral immune responses was associated with the severity of most symptoms, while T cell response intensity was linked to the severity of loss of smell or taste and cough, suggesting that SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells play a role in preventing severe symptoms of COVID-19.