Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a quest to understand why certain individuals remain uninfected or asymptomatic despite repetitive exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we focused on six exposed females residing with their symptomatic and reinfected SARS-CoV-2 PCR-positive COVID-19 partners. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from couples were analysed for poly (I:C)-induced mRNA expression of type I/III interferons and interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). Remarkably, we found a significant upregulation of the ISG interferon-inducible protein with tetrapeptide repeats 3 (IFIT3) gene exclusively in exposed uninfected or asymptomatic females, suggesting a potential role in protective immunity against symptomatic COVID-19.
Keywords:
COVID-19; IFIT3; SARS-CoV-2; innate immunity; protection.
Copyright © 2024 de Castro, Cariste, Almeida, Sasahara, Silva, Soares, Coria, Naslavsky, Santos, Cunha-Neto, Kalil and Zatz.
MeSH terms
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Adult
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COVID-19* / immunology
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Female
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Humans
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Interferons* / genetics
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Interferons* / immunology
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Interferons* / metabolism
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Leukocytes, Mononuclear* / immunology
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Leukocytes, Mononuclear* / metabolism
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Male
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Middle Aged
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Poly I-C
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SARS-CoV-2* / genetics
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SARS-CoV-2* / immunology
Grants and funding
The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) (grant numbers 2013/08028-1, 2014/50931-3, and 2020/09702-1), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (grant numbers 465355/2014-5, 404134/2020-3 and 400537/2024-9), the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001 and JBS S.A (grant number 69004). The funders were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this case report, or the decision to submit it for publication. All the cited funders supported the conduction of the experiments equally.