Frontiers in Pediatrics | |
Cross-Immunization Against Respiratory Coronaviruses May Protect Children From SARS-CoV2: More Than a Simple Hypothesis? | |
Davide Gibellini1  Erica Diani1  Ercole Concia2  Pier Paolo Piccaluga3  Mohsen Navari4  Giovanni Malerba5  | |
[1] Department of Diagnostic and Public Health, Unit of Microbiology, Verona University, Verona, Italy;Department of Diagnostics and Public Health, University of Verona, Verona, Italy;Department of Experimental, Diagnostic, and Experimental Medicine, Bologna University School of Medicine, Bologna, Italy;Department of Pathology, School of Health, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, Kenya;Biomolecular strategies, genetics, cutting-edge therapies and neuroscience (SBGN), Euro-Mediterranean Institute of Science and Technology (IEMEST), Palermo, Italy;Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Paramedical Sciences, Torbat Heydariyeh University of Medical Sciences, Torbat Heydariyeh, Iran;Research Center of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Torbat Heydariyeh University of Medical Sciences, Torbat Heydariyeh, Iran;Bioinformatics Research Group, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran;Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement, Section of Biology and Genetics, Verona University, Verona, Italy; | |
关键词: SARS-CoV-2; coronaviruses; COVID-19; HCoV-OC43; cross-reactive immunity; | |
DOI : 10.3389/fped.2020.595539 | |
来源: Frontiers | |
【 摘 要 】
In January 2020, a new coronavirus was identified as responsible for a pandemic acute respiratory syndrome. The virus demonstrated a high infectious capability and not-neglectable mortality in humans. However, similarly to previous SARS and MERS, the new disease COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2 seemed to relatively spare children and younger adults. Some hypotheses have been proposed to explain the phenomenon, including lower ACE2 expression in children, cross-immunization from measles/rubella/mumps and BCG-vaccination, as well as the integrity of respiratory mucosa. Herein, we hypothesize that an additional mechanism might contribute to children's relative protection from SARS-CoV-2, the cross-immunization conferred by previous exposures to other common respiratory coronaviruses. To support our hypothesis, we show a statistically significant similarity in genomic and protein sequences, including epitopes for B- and T-cell immunity, of SARS-CoV-2 and the other beta coronaviruses. Since these coronaviruses are highly diffused across pediatric populations, cross-reactive immunity might reasonably induce an at least partial protection from SARS-CoV-2 in children.
【 授权许可】
CC BY
【 预 览 】
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RO202107210512872ZK.pdf | 190KB | download |