Iulia Popescu, Mark E Snyder, Carlo J Iasella, Stefanie J Hannan, Ritchie Koshy, Robin Burke, Antu Das, Mark J Brown, Emily J Lyons, Sophia C Lieber, Xiaoping Chen, John C Sembrat, Payal Bhatt, Evan Deng, Xiaojing An, Kelsey Linstrum, Georgios Kitsios, Ioannis Konstantinidis, Melissa Saul, Daniel J Kass, Jonathan K Alder, Bill B Chen, Elizabeth A Lendermon, Silpa Kilaru, Bruce Johnson, Joseph M Pilewski, Joseph E Kiss, Alan H Wells, Alison Morris, Bryan J McVerry, Deborah K McMahon, Darrell J Triulzi, Kong Chen, Pablo G Sanchez, John F McDyer
RATIONALE: Lymphopenia is common in severe COVID-19 disease, yet the immune mechanisms are poorly understood. As inflammatory cytokines are increased in severe SARS-CoV-2 infection, we hypothesized a role in contributing to reduced T-cell numbers. OBJECTIVES: We sought to characterize the functional SARS-CoV-2 T-cell responses in severe versus recovered, mild COVID-19 patients to determine whether differences were detectable. METHODS: Using flow cytometry and single cell RNA sequence analyses we assessed SARS-CoV-2-specific responses in our cohort...
March 29, 2022: American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine