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Protein Cell
. 2020 Aug 11;1-31.
doi: 10.1007/s13238-020-00762-2. Online ahead of print.
A human circulating immune cell landscape in aging and COVID-19
Yingfeng Zheng 1 , Xiuxing Liu 1 , Wenqing Le 2 , Lihui Xie 1 , He Li 1 , Wen Wen 3 , Si Wang 4 5 6 7 , Shuai Ma 4 5 6 , Zhaohao Huang 1 , Jinguo Ye 1 , Wen Shi 1 , Yanxia Ye 8 , Zunpeng Liu 8 6 , Moshi Song 4 5 6 , Weiqi Zhang 5 6 9 10 , Jing-Dong J Han 11 , Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte 12 , Chuanle Xiao 1 , Jing Qu 13 14 15 , Hongyang Wang 16 , Guang-Hui Liu 17 18 19 20 , Wenru Su 21
Affiliations
- PMID: 32780218
- PMCID: PMC7417788
- DOI: 10.1007/s13238-020-00762-2
Abstract
Age-associated changes in immune cells have been linked to an increased risk for infection. However, a global and detailed characterization of the changes that human circulating immune cells undergo with age is lacking. Here, we combined scRNA-seq, mass cytometry and scATAC-seq to compare immune cell types in peripheral blood collected from young and old subjects and patients with COVID-19. We found that the immune cell landscape was reprogrammed with age and was characterized by T cell polarization from naive and memory cells to effector, cytotoxic, exhausted and regulatory cells, along with increased late natural killer cells, age-associated B cells, inflammatory monocytes and age-associated dendritic cells. In addition, the expression of genes, which were implicated in coronavirus susceptibility, was upregulated in a cell subtype-specific manner with age. Notably, COVID-19 promoted age-induced immune cell polarization and gene expression related to inflammation and cellular senescence. Therefore, these findings suggest that a dysregulated immune system and increased gene expression associated with SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility may at least partially account for COVID-19 vulnerability in the elderly.
Keywords: COVID-19; aging; blood; immune cells; single-cell sequencing.