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Some antibodies can dampen antiviral defences in people with severe COVID

Defects in the immune defences induced by the protein interferon are associated with some severe cases of COVID-19. An analysis of patients’ blood samples sheds light on how antibodies might contribute to these defects.
By
  1. Matteo Gentili

    1. Matteo Gentili is at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA.

  2. Nir Hacohen

    1. Nir Hacohen is at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA, and at the Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

Infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus can lead to diverse outcomes, ranging from no symptoms to varying degrees of disease severity, spanning mild illness to death. What determines the degree of severity is unclear, but mounting evidence points to exacerbated and abnormal responses in the innate branch of the immune system as a main driver of major illness. Writing in Nature, Combes et al.1 present a study investigating the hallmarks of COVID-19 severity.

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Nature 591, 37-39 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00352-0

References

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Competing Interests

N.H. owns shares in BioNTech and is an adviser for Related Sciences.

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