Integrated single-cell analysis unveils diverging immune features of COVID-19, influenza, and other community-acquired pneumonia.
Abstract
The exact immunopathophysiology of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) remains clouded by a general lack of relevant disease controls. The scarcity of single-cell investigations in the broader population of patients with CAP renders it difficult to distinguish immune features unique to COVID-19 from the common characteristics of a dysregulated host response to pneumonia. We performed integrated single-cell transcriptomic and proteomic analyses in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from a matched cohort of eight patients with COVID-19, eight patients with CAP caused by Influenza A or other pathogens, and four non-infectious control subjects. Using this balanced, multi-omics approach, we describe shared and diverging transcriptional and phenotypic patterns-including increased levels of type I interferon-stimulated natural killer cells in COVID-19, cytotoxic CD8 T EMRA cells in both COVID-19 and influenza, and distinctive monocyte compositions between all groups-and thereby expand our understanding of the peripheral immune response in different etiologies of pneumonia.
| Authors: | Schuurman AR, Reijnders TD, Saris A, Ramirez Moral I, Schinkel M, de Brabander J, van Linge C, Vermeulen L, Scicluna BP, Wiersinga WJ, Vieira Braga FA, van der Poll T, |
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| Journal: | Elife;2021Aug23; 10. doi:10.7554/eLife.69661 |
| Year: | 2021 |
| PubMed: | PMID: 34424199 (Go to PubMed) |