Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Chinese People's Liberation Army, Beijing, China.
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Vic, Australia.
Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2021 Sep 16;6(1):342. doi: 10.1038/s41392-021-00753-7.
While some individuals infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) present mild-to-severe disease, many SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals are asymptomatic. We sought to identify the distinction of immune response between asymptomatic and moderate patients. We performed single-cell transcriptome and T-cell/B-cell receptor (TCR/BCR) sequencing in 37 longitudinal collected peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from asymptomatic, moderate, and severe patients with healthy controls. Asymptomatic patients displayed increased CD56CD16 natural killer (NK) cells and upregulation of interferon-gamma in effector CD4 and CD8 T cells and NK cells. They showed more robust TCR clonal expansion, especially in effector CD4 T cells, but lack strong BCR clonal expansion compared to moderate patients. Moreover, asymptomatic patients have lower interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) expression in general but large interpatient variability, whereas moderate patients showed various magnitude and temporal dynamics of the ISGs expression across multiple cell populations but lower than a patient with severe disease. Our data provide evidence of different immune signatures to SARS-CoV-2 in asymptomatic infections.
虽然一些感染严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）的个体表现为轻度至重度疾病，但许多 SARS-CoV-2 感染个体无症状。我们试图确定无症状和中度患者之间免疫反应的区别。我们对 37 名无症状、中度和重度患者以及健康对照者的 37 个纵向采集的外周血单个核细胞样本进行了单细胞转录组和 T 细胞/ B 细胞受体（TCR/BCR）测序。无症状患者表现出增加的 CD56CD16 自然杀伤（NK）细胞和效应 CD4 和 CD8 T 细胞及 NK 细胞中干扰素-γ的上调。与中度患者相比，他们显示出更强的 TCR 克隆扩增，特别是在效应 CD4 T 细胞中，但缺乏强烈的 BCR 克隆扩增。此外，无症状患者的干扰素刺激基因（ISGs）表达总体上较低，但个体间差异较大，而中度患者在多个细胞群中表现出不同幅度和时间动态的 ISGs 表达，但低于重度疾病患者。我们的数据提供了无症状感染中 SARS-CoV-2 不同免疫特征的证据。
