Bank of Human Leukocytes From COVID-19 Convalescent Donors With an Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Cellular Immunity

The SARS-CoV-2 identified in China in January 2020 is the cause of an unprecedented pandemic. The SARS-CoV-2 and each viral variant are responsible of a respiratory infectious disease, which can be asymptomatic. Nevertheless, a part of infected patients will experiment serious forms associated with a high mortality rate. Most serious forms present with lymphopenia and a functional exhaustion of speicifci T lymphocytes. Several studies showed that these quantitative and qualitative lymphocyte abnormalities are associated with unfavourable patients' outcome. The investigators hypothesized that the use of anti-viral T lymphocytes from convalescent COVID 19 donors could be helpful to improve the prognosis of COVID-19 serious forms. This study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of setting up a biobank that could allow the preservation and production of a cellular immunotherapy specific to SARS-CoV-2.

Patients who meet the donor selection criteria during their hospitalization for a COVID-19 infection in the Infectious and Tropical Diseases Department of the University Hospital of Nancy will be informed of the study. Recovery generally occurs within 14 days of the date of infection (D0) corresponding to the date of appearance of the first symptoms of the infection. This is characterized by the disappearance of patent clinical symptoms such as fever and chills and, for patients hospitalized for O2 requisition, in the cessation of oxygen therapy. A medical visit will be scheduled within 28 to 64 days after the beginning of the SARS-Cov-2 infection (D28 to D64) with the department of hemapheresis of the Nancy university hospital for the collection of a whole blood bag. Forty-eight hours before this medical appointment (D26 to D62), the patients included in the study will be contacted again by phone to ensure that they do not present a contraindication (fever, appearance of new symptoms since healing and/or feverishness) to the continuation of the study. In absence of contraindications, the medical appointment is maintained. During the medical appointment, the regulatory infectious markers for (i) HIV, (ii) HTLV, (iii) hepatitis, (iv) syphilis, (v) EBV, (vi) CMV and (vii ) toxoplasmosis will be sought. The following will also be collected: (i) a bag of whole blood (450 ml); (ii) 2 x 7 ml dry tubes for serological analyses; (iii) 3 x 7 ml EDTA tubes for DGV; (iv) 3 tubes of 5 ml on lithium heparin for the Elispot test and (v) 1 tube of EDTA of 7 ml for HLA typing. The blood bags will be transported to the Nancy University Hospital Cell Therapy unit (UTCT). The whole blood samples go into production and undergo a density gradient separation in order to isolate mononuclear cells before cryopreservation.