SARS-CoV-2 T-cell epitopes for the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for COVID-19 disease (CoV2TE19)

SARS-CoV-2 pandemic currently poses a serious threat to the world population, calling for the rapid development of effective diagnostic and therapeutic tools. T-cell immunity mediated by CD4 and CD8 T cells represents a cornerstone in the control of viral infections. The knowledge of virus-specific T-cell epitopes represented by HLA-presented peptides provides on the one hand a diagnostic tool and on the other hand various therapeutic options including vaccination approaches and the transfer of virus-specific T cells or T-cell receptors, which was already proven to be effective against various viral infections. Thus, we aim within the proposed project to characterize SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4 and CD8 T-cell epitopes from all known proteins of the virus covering the most common HLA allotypes. Using ELISpot assays we will perform a high-throughput screening of 120 potential SARS-CoV-2 HLA class I and class II T-cell epitopes predicted by the established algorithms SYFPEITHI and NetMHCpan using PBMCs from volunteer donors that recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection (SARS-VD). Validated T-cell epitopes will be further used to characterize SARS-CoV-2 immunity. This approach will finally allow to i) gain more detailed knowledge about the interaction of SARS-CoV-2 with the immune system, ii) provide novel diagnostic tools to identify and monitor people with SARS-CoV-2 immunity, and most important iii) define possible target structures for the development of virus-specific immunotherapies for the treatment of the COVID-19 disease.