For anyone interested....
Possible explanation of why the low quality of antibodies found in those infected with Covid, and the limited B-cell memory has been published by a team of researchers led by Prof Shiv Pillai (Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences at Harvard, Director of Harvard immunology)
They attribute it to the loss of germinal centers in Covid-19 patients. During a viral infection, foreign antigens carried to the secondary lymphoid organs are recognized by the B-cells and this mechanism takes place in a germinal center. The germinal center is a specialised microstructure where production of long-lived memory B cells (which provides protection from reinfection) takes place.
It is suspected that the Cytokine storm in severe Covid-19 cases is partly responsible for the loss of these germinal centers. It is highly unlikely that any of the vaccines developed will cause the loss of germinal centers as the vaccines do not have the live virus itself.
Another unknown issue at this stage is why some people develop into serious Covid-19 and why some do not. Immunologists suspect that this has something to do with the lymphocyte function and currently trying to to unravel the reasons.
Here's an extract from their publication. It's not written to be easily understood by an average person but below is a simple summary which is important.
"Absence of Germinal Centers and Loss of Bcl-6+ Germinal Center B Cells but Preservation of AID+ B Cells in Lymph Nodes Early in COVID-19 Disease. We have used a human-tissue-imaging platform with quantitative high-resolution automated slide-scanning microscopy, exploiting both regular and confocal approaches and multispectral imaging, in order to interrogate human lymphoid and non-lymphoid organs at the single-cell level. These approaches crucially preserve architecture over broad swaths of tissue. Thoracic lymph nodes in severely ill COVID-19 patients who succumbed in less than 8 days after admission, less than 10 days from the onset of respiratory symptoms displayed a lack of germinal centers, and these were also absent in those who succumbed later, 15–36 days after admission."
"These data suggest an underlying basis for the lower quality and lack of durability of humoral immune responses observed during natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 and have significant implications for expectations of herd immunity. "
Possible explanation of why the low quality of antibodies found in those infected with Covid, and the limited B-cell memory has been published by a team of researchers led by Prof Shiv Pillai (Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences at Harvard, Director of Harvard immunology)
They attribute it to the loss of germinal centers in Covid-19 patients. During a viral infection, foreign antigens carried to the secondary lymphoid organs are recognized by the B-cells and this mechanism takes place in a germinal center. The germinal center is a specialised microstructure where production of long-lived memory B cells (which provides protection from reinfection) takes place.
It is suspected that the Cytokine storm in severe Covid-19 cases is partly responsible for the loss of these germinal centers. It is highly unlikely that any of the vaccines developed will cause the loss of germinal centers as the vaccines do not have the live virus itself.
Another unknown issue at this stage is why some people develop into serious Covid-19 and why some do not. Immunologists suspect that this has something to do with the lymphocyte function and currently trying to to unravel the reasons.
Here's an extract from their publication. It's not written to be easily understood by an average person but below is a simple summary which is important.
"Absence of Germinal Centers and Loss of Bcl-6+ Germinal Center B Cells but Preservation of AID+ B Cells in Lymph Nodes Early in COVID-19 Disease. We have used a human-tissue-imaging platform with quantitative high-resolution automated slide-scanning microscopy, exploiting both regular and confocal approaches and multispectral imaging, in order to interrogate human lymphoid and non-lymphoid organs at the single-cell level. These approaches crucially preserve architecture over broad swaths of tissue. Thoracic lymph nodes in severely ill COVID-19 patients who succumbed in less than 8 days after admission, less than 10 days from the onset of respiratory symptoms displayed a lack of germinal centers, and these were also absent in those who succumbed later, 15–36 days after admission."
"These data suggest an underlying basis for the lower quality and lack of durability of humoral immune responses observed during natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 and have significant implications for expectations of herd immunity. "
Last edited:
