Cross-Immunization Against Respiratory Coronaviruses May Protect Children From SARS-CoV2: More Than a Simple Hypothesis?

Frontiers in Pediatrics

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