Tea cells are also living cells. They can expand the ones that do recognize omacronit and are activated, may then expand and replicate so that you have more of them out there. There was something on the order of maybe 25 % or so of those sequences that are recognized by tea cells had a mutation in them. We don't have a huge amount of information about the exact tea cel responses from vaccines during the initial trials because that wasn't gathered at the time.
Much of the coverage of COVID immunity often focuses on antibody response and for good reason - these small, y-shaped proteins can detect, and in some cases neutralise, viruses like SARS-CoV-2. But as variants like Omicron evolve to evade antibodies, the role of another part of the immune system, T cells, has been brought into sharper focus. These immune cells work in a different way to antibodies, attacking infected cells rather than the virus itself, which can make their response broader and more robust. Now, research is showing that, unlike antibodies, T cell potency is not impacted by the mutations in variants like Omicron. In this episode of Coronapod, we ask why T cells are so often overlooked, and what role they might be playing in our protection from the coronavirus.News:‘Killer’ immune cells still recognize Omicron variantSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.
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