Division of Rheumatology and Immunology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria.
Division of Angiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, 8036 Graz, Austria.
J Immunol. 2021 Apr 1;206(7):1478-1482. doi: 10.4049/jimmunol.2001034. Epub 2021 Feb 8.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection has become pandemic. Cytokine release syndrome occurring in a minority of SARS-CoV-2 infections is associated with severe disease and high mortality. We profiled the composition, activation, and proliferation of T cells in 20 patients with severe or critical COVID-19 and 40 matched healthy controls by flow cytometry. Unsupervised hierarchical cluster analysis based on 18 T cell subsets resulted in separation of healthy controls and COVID-19 patients. Compared to healthy controls, patients suffering from severe and critical COVID-19 had increased frequencies of activated and proliferating CD38Ki67 CD4 and CD8 T cells, suggesting active antiviral T cell defense. Frequencies of CD38Ki67 Th1 and CD4 cells correlated negatively with plasma IL-6. Thus, our data suggest that patients suffering from COVID-19 have a distinct T cell composition that is potentially modulated by IL-6.
新型冠状病毒病 2019（COVID-19）由严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）感染引起，已成为全球性大流行。少数 SARS-CoV-2 感染患者会出现细胞因子释放综合征，与严重疾病和高死亡率相关。我们通过流式细胞术对 20 名重症或危重症 COVID-19 患者和 40 名匹配的健康对照者的 T 细胞组成、激活和增殖进行了分析。基于 18 个 T 细胞亚群的无监督层次聚类分析导致健康对照者和 COVID-19 患者的分离。与健康对照者相比，患有重症和危重症 COVID-19 的患者中激活和增殖的 CD38Ki67 CD4 和 CD8 T 细胞频率增加，提示存在抗病毒 T 细胞防御。CD38Ki67 Th1 和 CD4 细胞的频率与血浆 IL-6 呈负相关。因此，我们的数据表明，COVID-19 患者具有独特的 T 细胞组成，其可能受 IL-6 调节。
