Neutralising antibodies and memory T cells
After becoming infected or vaccinated, the body creates neutralising antibodies and memory T cells against the virus. The neutralising antibody serves to prevent host cells from being infected by the virus. While memory T cells cannot prevent the infection, they can quickly search and destroy infected cells, preventing the viral infection from progressing into a severe disease.
To find out the changes that occur in our body’s immune system after suffering from post-vaccination breakthrough infection, the team focused on the memory T cells that formed after the Omicron infectionEmerging in late 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant had drastically increased transmissibility in comparison to its predecessors, which quickly allowed it to become the dominant strain in 2022. New strains of Omicron have kept emerging ever since then.Starting with BA.1 and BA2, BA.4/BA.5, BQ.1, XBB strains, and more recently JN.1 strains were among the new strains of the Omicron variant. This has led to widespread breakthrough infection despite vaccination.Their immune cells were separated from the peripheral blood of the subjects, and the memory T cells’ cytokine production and antiviral activities in response to various spike proteins from different variants were measured.
