T-cell cellular stress and reticulocyte signatures, but not loss of naive T lymphocytes, characterize severe COVID-19 in older adults.

ABSTRACT: In children and younger adults up to 39 years of age, SARS-CoV-2 usually elicits mild symptoms that resemble the common cold. Disease severity increases with age starting at 30 and reaches astounding mortality rates that are ~330 fold higher in persons above 85 years of age compared to those 18-39 years old. To understand age-specific immune pathobiology of COVID-19, we have analyzed soluble mediators, cellular phenotypes, and transcriptome from over 80 COVID-19 patients of varying ages and disease severity, carefully controlling for age as a variable. We found that reticulocyte numbers and peripheral blood transcriptional signatures robustly correlated with disease severity. By contrast, decreased numbers and proportion of naïve T-cells, reported previously as a COVID-19 severity risk fac

SUBMITTER: Jergovic M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9838276 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature