Dendritic cell deficiencies persist seven months after SARS-CoV-2 infection

  1. A Perez-Gomez
  2. J Vitalle
  3. MC Gasca-Capote
  4. A Gutierrez-Valencia
  5. M Trujillo-Rodriguez
  6. A Serna-Gallego
  7. E Muñoz-Muela
  8. MR Jimenez-Leon
  9. M Rafii-El-Idrissi Benhnia
  10. I Rivas-Jeremias
  11. C Sotomayor
  12. C Roca-Oporto
  13. N Espinosa
  14. C Infante-Dominguez
  15. JC Crespo-Rivas
  16. A Fernández-Villar
  17. A Pérez-González
  18. LF Lopez-Cortes
  19. E Poveda
  20. E Ruiz-Mateos

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Abstract

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 infection induces an exacerbated inflammation driven by innate immunity components. Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in the defense against viral infections, for instance plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs), have the capacity to produce vast amounts of interferon-alpha (IFN-α). In COVID-19 there is a deficit in DC numbers and IFN-α production, which has been associated with disease severity. In this work, we described that in addition to the DC deficiency, several DC activation and homing markers were altered in acute COVID-19 patients, which were associated with multiple inflammatory markers. Remarkably, previously hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients remained with decreased numbers of CD1c+ myeloid DCs and pDCs seven months after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Moreover, the expression of DC markers as CD86 and CD4 were only restored in previously non-hospitalized patients while integrin β7 and indoleamine 2,3- dyoxigenase (IDO) no restoration was observed. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the immunological sequelae of COVID-19.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.18.436001: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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.

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    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.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.18.436001v1 on bioRxiv