Volume 6 Issue 10, Oct 2021:

Article

Single-cell immune profiling reveals distinct immune response in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

Xiang-Na Zhao,Yue You  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3883-445X,Xiao-Ming Cui,Hui-Xia Gao,Guo-Lin Wang  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5393-9500,Sheng-Bo Zhang  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3870-0590,Lin Yao,Li-Jun Duan,Ka-Li Zhu,Yu-Ling Wang,Li Li,Jian-Hua Lu,Hai-Bin Wang,Jing-Fang Fan,Huan-Wei Zheng,Er-Hei Dai,Lu-Yi Tian  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3420-3685 &…Mai-Juan Ma  ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8105-462X 

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 CD56briCD16− 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.

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