HIV-Like Immune Tolerance: Checkpoint Upregulation, T-Cell Exhaustion, and STAT3/IL-10/Treg Expansion
Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that the spike protein actively subverts adaptive immunity by inducing an exhaustion phenotype reminiscent of chronic viral infections such as HIV.
Direct evidence: Avendaño-Ortiz et al. (2020) demonstrated that exposure of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells to a cocktail of SARS-CoV-2 proteins (including S, N, and papain-like protease) polarized monocytes toward an HLA-DR^low PD-L1^high phenotype. This was accompanied by significantly impaired CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-cell proliferation, which was partially but significantly reversed by anti-PD-1 or anti-PD-L1 blocking antibodies
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