Protective humoral and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 persist up to 1 year after recovery
Chengqian Feng, Jingrong Shi, Qinghong Fan, Yaping Wang, Huang Huang, Fengjuan Chen, Guofang Tang, Youxia Li, Pingchao Li, Jiao Jiao Li, Jianping Cui, Liliangzi Guo, Sisi Chen, Mengling Jiang, Liqiang Feng, Ling Chen, Chunliang Lei, Changwen Ke, Xilong Deng, Fengyu Hu, Xiaoping Tang, Feng Li
Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 vaccination has been launched worldwide to build effective population-level immunity to curb the spread of this virus. The effectiveness and duration of protective immunity is a critical factor for public health. Here, we report the kinetics of the SARS-CoV-2 specific immune response in 204 individuals up to 1-year after recovery from COVID-19. RBD-IgG and full-length spike-IgG concentrations and serum neutralizing capacity decreases during the first 6-months, but is maintained stably up to 1-year after hospital discharge. Even individuals who had generated high IgG levels during early convalescent stages had IgG levels that had decreased to a similar level one year later. Notably, the RBD-IgG level positively correlates with serum neutralizing capacity, suggesting the representative role of RBD-IgG in predicting serum protection. Moreover, viral-specific cellular immune protection, including spike and nucleoprotein specific, persisted between 6 months and 12 months. Altogether, our study supports the persistence of viral-specific protective immunity over 1 year.