Runhong Zhou, K. To, Y. Wong, Li Liu, Biao Zhou, X. Li, Haode Huang, Yufei Mo, Tsz-Yat Luk, Thomas Tsz-Kan Lau, Pauline Yeung, Wai-Ming Chan, A. Wu, K. Lung, O. Tsang, W. Leung, I. Hung, K. Yuen, Zhiwei Chen
Immunity, 2020
Summary The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has resulted in millions of infections yet the role of host immune responses in early COVID-19 pathogenesis remains unclear. By investigating 17 acute and 24 convalescent patients, we found that acute SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in broad immune cell reduction including T, NK, monocyte and dendritic cell (DC). DCs were significantly reduced with functional impairment, and cDC:pDC ratios were increased among acute severe patients. Besides lymphocytopenia, although neutralizing antibodies were rapidly and abundantly generated in patients, there were delayed receptor binding domain (RBD)- and nucleocapsid protein (NP)-specific T cell responses during the first 3 weeks post symptoms onset. Moreover, acute RBD- and NP-specific T cell responses included relatively more CD4 T cells than CD8 T cells. Our findings provided evidence that impaired DCs, together with timely inverted strong antibody but weak CD8 T cell responses, may contribute to acute COVID-19 pathogenesis and have implications for vaccine development.
Cited by 152 publications.
Field of study: Biology