{"id":5500,"date":"2023-12-12T16:02:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5500"},"modified":"2023-12-12T16:02:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T22:02:14","slug":"pre-existing-sars-cov-2-t-cells-predicted-to-recognize-new-pirola-variant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/12\/12\/pre-existing-sars-cov-2-t-cells-predicted-to-recognize-new-pirola-variant\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Existing SARS-CoV-2 T Cells Predicted to Recognize New Pirola Variant"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genengnews.com\/topics\/infectious-diseases\/pre-existing-sars-cov-2-t-cells-predicted-to-recognize-new-pirola-variant\/\">Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to evolve (even if they are no longer making headlines.)&nbsp; In August, researchers detected a new SARS-CoV-2 \u201cvariant of concern\u201d in patients, first in Israel and Denmark. Over the past few months, this variant, BA.2.86 or \u201cPirola,\u201d has made its way around the globe. The Pirola variant has raised alarms because it is highly mutated\u2014comparable to the levels of mutations seen in the Omicron variant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a concern that a virus with such a high number of mutations would \u2018escape\u2019 T cell immunity,\u201d says Alessandro Sette, DrBiolSci, professor at the Center for Vaccine Innovation at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because of those concerns, researchers sought to determine whether previous<a href=\"https:\/\/www.genengnews.com\/category\/virology\/coronavirus\/\">\u00a0COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0vaccination (or previous SARS-CoV-2 exposure) can protect people from severe disease. Now, new research predicts the impact of BA.2.86-associated mutations on SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The findings, published in&nbsp;<em>Cell Host and Microbe&nbsp;<\/em>in the paper&nbsp;\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S1931312823004602?via%3Dihub\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pre-existing SARS-2 specific T cells are predicted to cross-recognize BA.2.86,<\/a>\u201d&nbsp;suggest that pre-existing SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells can cross-recognize BA.2.86.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur analysis suggests there is positive news,\u201d says Alba Grifoni, PhD, research assistant professor at LJI. \u201cIt appears previous exposure to Omicron\u2014or vaccination with the newer bivalent vaccines\u2014may arm a person with T cells that can \u2018catch up\u2019 and generate responses specific for fighting Pirola.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genengnews.com\/topics\/infectious-diseases\/pre-existing-sars-cov-2-t-cells-predicted-to-recognize-new-pirola-variant\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News SARS-CoV-2 variants continue to evolve (even if they are no longer making headlines.)&nbsp; In August, researchers detected a new SARS-CoV-2 \u201cvariant of concern\u201d in patients, first in Israel and Denmark. Over the past few months, this variant, BA.2.86 or \u201cPirola,\u201d has made its way around the globe. The Pirola variant [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5501,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5500\/revisions\/5501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}