Signal Transduct Target Ther . Single-cell immune profiling reveals distinct immune response in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

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Signal Transduct Target Ther


. 2021 Sep 16;6(1):342.
doi: 10.1038/s41392-021-00753-7.
Single-cell immune profiling reveals distinct immune response in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients


Xiang-Na Zhao ^{# 1} , Yue You ^{# 2 3} , Xiao-Ming Cui ^{# 4} , Hui-Xia Gao ^{# 5} , Guo-Lin Wang ⁴ , Sheng-Bo Zhang ^{2 3} , Lin Yao ⁴ , Li-Jun Duan ⁴ , Ka-Li Zhu ⁴ , Yu-Ling Wang ⁵ , Li Li ⁵ , Jian-Hua Lu ⁵ , Hai-Bin Wang ⁵ , Jing-Fang Fan ⁵ , Huan-Wei Zheng ⁵ , Er-Hei Dai ⁶ , Lu-Yi Tian ^{7 8} , Mai-Juan Ma ⁹



Affiliations

• PMID: 34531370
• PMCID: PMC8443960
• DOI: 10.1038/s41392-021-00753-7

Free PMC article

Abstract

While some individuals infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) present mild-to-severe disease, many SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals are asymptomatic. We sought to identify the distinction of immune response between asymptomatic and moderate patients. We performed single-cell transcriptome and T-cell/B-cell receptor (TCR/BCR) sequencing in 37 longitudinal collected peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from asymptomatic, moderate, and severe patients with healthy controls. Asymptomatic patients displayed increased CD56^briCD16^- natural killer (NK) cells and upregulation of interferon-gamma in effector CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T cells and NK cells. They showed more robust TCR clonal expansion, especially in effector CD4⁺ T cells, but lack strong BCR clonal expansion compared to moderate patients. Moreover, asymptomatic patients have lower interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) expression in general but large interpatient variability, whereas moderate patients showed various magnitude and temporal dynamics of the ISGs expression across multiple cell populations but lower than a patient with severe disease. Our data provide evidence of different immune signatures to SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic infections.