Oxford Vaccine Group, Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford and the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford, UK.
Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Rev Med Virol. 2020 Sep;30(5):e2144. doi: 10.1002/rmv.2144. Epub 2020 Jul 15.
The significantly higher mortality rates seen in the elderly compared with young children during the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic is likely to be driven in part by an impaired immune response in older individuals. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) seroprevalence approaches 80% in the elderly. CMV has been shown to accelerate immune ageing by affecting peripheral blood T cell phenotypes and increasing inflammatory mediated cytokines such as IL-6. The elderly with pre-existing but clinically silent CMV infection may therefore be particularly susceptible to severe Covid-19 disease and succumb to a cytokine storm which may have been promoted by CMV. Here, we evaluate the potential role of CMV in those with severe Covid-19 disease and consider how this relationship can be investigated in current research studies.
在 2019 冠状病毒病(COVID-19)大流行期间,老年人的死亡率明显高于幼儿,这可能部分是由于老年人的免疫反应受损。巨细胞病毒(CMV)在老年人中的血清流行率接近 80%。CMV 已被证明通过影响外周血 T 细胞表型和增加炎症介导的细胞因子(如 IL-6)来加速免疫衰老。因此,患有临床无症状但预先存在的 CMV 感染的老年人可能特别容易受到严重 COVID-19 疾病的影响,并死于细胞因子风暴,而细胞因子风暴可能是由 CMV 引起的。在这里,我们评估了 CMV 在严重 COVID-19 患者中的潜在作用,并考虑了如何在当前的研究中研究这种关系。