Analysis of adaptive immune cell populations and phenotypes in the patients infected by SARS-CoV-2

  1. Xiaofeng Yang
  2. Tongxin Dai
  3. Xiaobo Zhou
  4. Hongbo Qian
  5. Rui Guo
  6. Lei Lei
  7. Xingzhe Zhang
  8. Dan Zhang
  9. Lin Shi
  10. Yanbin Cheng
  11. Jinsong Hu
  12. Yaling Guo
  13. Baojun Zhang

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Abstract

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, has rapidly spread to most of countries in the world, threatening the health and lives of many people. Unfortunately, information regarding the immunological characteristics in COVID-19 patients remains limited. Here we collected the blood samples from 18 healthy donors (HD) and 38 COVID-19 patients to analyze changes in the adaptive immune cell populations and phenotypes. In comparison to HD, the lymphocyte percentage was slightly decreased, the percentages of CD4 and CD8 T cells in lymphocytes are similar, whereas B cell percentage increased in COVID-19 patients. T cells, especially CD8 T cells, showed an enhanced expression of late activation marker CD25 and exhaustion marker PD-1. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 induced an increased percentage of T follicular helpher (Tfh)- and germinal center B-like (GCB-like) cells in the blood. However, the parameters in COVD-19 patients remained unchanged across various age groups. Therefore, we demonstrated that the T and B cells can be activated normally and exhibit functional features. These data provide a clue that the adaptive immunity in most people could be primed to induce a significant immune response against SARS-CoV-2 infection upon receiving standard medical care.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040675v3 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040675: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethics statement: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Commission of the Eighth Hospital of Xi’an (20190730-1346) with a waiver of informed consent due to a public health outbreak investigation.
    Consent: Ethics statement: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Commission of the Eighth Hospital of Xi’an (20190730-1346) with a waiver of informed consent due to a public health outbreak investigation.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variable23 patients (60.53%) were men, and 15 patients (39.47%) were women (Table 1).

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    FlowJo 8 was used for data analysis.
    FlowJo
    suggested: (FlowJo, RRID:SCR_008520)
    The student’s t test was performed for two group analysis using SPSS 22.0 software. * and ** strands for P<0.05 and P<0.01, respectively.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040675v2 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.23.20040675v1 on medRxiv