Together with two DZHK partner sites, involving clinician scientists, biologists, and bioinformaticians, we used multi-omic techniques involving single-cell transcriptomics and plasma proteomics to dissect the immune response in patients with non-pneumonic SARS-CoV2 infection. Our interdisciplinary approach allowed us to uncover protective immune trajectories in COVID-19 by fully exploiting this complex multi-omic dataset through longitudinal and correlative analyses.
So far, conflicting data on systemic IFN signalling in COVID-19 exist. This is mainly based on heterogeneous patient populations and diverging sampling time points. Focusing on early disease time points in oligo- and asymptomatic SARS-CoV2 infected patients, we now provide a valuable resource for better understanding the physiological immune response associated with successful upper airway containment of SARS-CoV2.
We identify a distinct systemic immune state correlating with viral containment, characterized by an upregulation of interferon stimulated genes across circulating immune cell subsets. Further, we identify a reduced cytotoxic state of Natural Killer cells and T cells and an immune-modulatory phenotype of monocytes in patients with non-pneumonic SARS-CoV2 infection. In summary, we reveal, that a systemic rather than local immune state associates with a successful antiviral response in SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Link to the publication:
Protective immune trajectories in early viral containment of non-pneumonic SARS-CoV-2 infection (Pekayvaz et al., 2022)
