BCG vaccine may generate cross-reactive T cells against SARS-CoV-2: In silico analyses and a hypothesis.
Vaccine
; 38(41): 6352-6356, 2020 09 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-723380
ABSTRACT
The world is facing the rising emergency of SARS-CoV-2. The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused a global public health and economic crisis.Recent epidemiological studies have shown that a possible association of BCG vaccination program with decreased COVID-19-related risks, suggesting that BCG may provide protection against COVID-19. Non-specific protection against viral infections is considered as a main mechanism of BCG and clinical trials to determine whether BCG vaccine can protect healthcare workers from the COVID-19 are currently underway. We hypothesized that BCG may carry similar T cell epitopes with SARS-CoV-2 and evaluated the hypothesis by utilizing publicly available database and computer algorithms predicting human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I-binding peptides. We foundthatBCG contains similar 9-amino acid sequences with SARS-CoV-2. These closely-related peptides had moderate to high binding affinity for multiple common HLA class I molecules, suggesting that cross-reactive T cells against SARS-CoV-2 could be generated by BCG vaccination.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
BCG Vaccine
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes
/
Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
/
Pandemics
/
Betacoronavirus
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Vaccine
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
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