Immunity: Specific immune cells predict the severity of COVID-19

2, 2020 /--- According to a recent study published in the journal Immunity, in severe COVID-19 cases, not only do classical immune cells work, but the release of immature precellular cells from the bone marrow into the blood also indicates the severity of the disease and can lead to complications.
infection with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV2 may lead to highly heterogeneic clinical manifestations.
many infections are mild or even asymptomatic, the disease can be life-threatening, especially in the elderly.
in these severe cases, other organs such as the heart or kidneys may also be affected in addition to the lungs.
(Photo: www.pixabay.com) "Despite all the research, over time, we actually know very little about the course of the disease.
cell types play an important role, when and where? Can we identify early molecular characteristics in the blood to indicate the course of the disease? "These are the questions we asked ourselves at the beginning, and we got surprising answers," explained Professor Philip Rosenstiel, co-lead author of the study and director of the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology (IKMB) at CAU and UKSH.
team examined blood samples from hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
in a group of 14 patients, circulating blood cells were analyzed by time series and compared with blood samples from healthy people.
"We were able to identify rare cell types by analyzing thousands of cells in parallel with single-cell genomics," explains the study's lead author, Dr Joana Pimenta Bernardes.
study found that two types of immature cells are characterized, particularly by severe COVID-19 diseases: plate plateboard precellular cells (so-called cytocytes) and immature red blood cells.
"This is particularly surprising because these prescellular cells are usually not in the blood, but in the bone marrow, where they mature as needed," Tran explains.
Tran continued: "We know that these cells are also present in the blood of seriously ill patients, such as in patients with bacterial sepsis (blood poisoning).
is not yet described for COVID-19.
"With the help of high-precision cell genome analysis, we were able to map very detailed images of cellular changes throughout the disease," said Joachim Schultze, a professor at the University of Bonn and head of the DZNE research team and one of the study's co-authors.
(Bioon.com) Source: Release of immature blood cells from bone marrow as a signature of severe COVID-19 Original source: Joana P. Bernardes et al. Longitudinal multi-omics analyses identify responses of megakaryocytes, erythroid cells and plasmablasts as hallmarks of severe COVID-19 trajectories, Immunity (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2020.11.017。