Characteristics of lymphocyte subsets and cytokines in peripheral blood of 123 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP)

By S. Wan, Q. Yi, S. Fan, Jinglong Lv, Xianxiang Zhang, Lian Guo, Chunhui Lang, Qing Xiao, Kaihu Xiao, Zhengjun Yi and 4 more. medRxiv, 2020

600 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background: To explore the cellular immunity and cytokines status of NCP patients and to predict the correlation between the cellular immunity levels, cytokines and the severity of patients. Methods: 123 NCP patients were divided into mild and severe groups. Peripheral blood was collected, lymphocyte subsets and cytokines were detected. Correlation analysis was performed on the lymphocyte subsets and cytokines, and the differences between the indexes of the two groups were analyzed. Results: 102 mild and 21 severe patients were included. Lymphocyte subsets were reduced in two groups. The proportion of CD8 + T reduction in the mild and severe group was 28.43% and 61.9%, respectively; The proportion of B cell reduction was 25.49% and 28.57%; The proportion of NK cell reduction was 34.31% and 47.62%; The detection value of IL-6 was 0 in 55.88% of the mild group, mild group has a significantly lower proportion of patients with IL-6 higher than normal than severe group; There was no significant linear correlation between the lymphocyte subsets and cytokines, while significant differences were noticed between the two groups in CD4 + T, CD8 + T, IL-6 and IL-10. Conclusions: Low levels of CD4+T and CD8+T are common in severe NCP. IL-6 and IL-10 levels were higher in severe patients. T cell subsets and cytokines can be used as one of the basis for predicting the transition from mild to severe. Large number of samples are still needed to confirm the "warning value" of CD4 + T, CD8 + T IL-6 and IL-10.

Subfields: Infectious Diseases, Neurology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6248633cf9aac366267e2936ad3f0e9892318735

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Infectious Diseases

1. Bo Huang
2. L. Garcia
3. Youhai H. Chen
4. X. Wan
5. Jinyan Liu
6. Zhixin Zhang
7. Hongzhou Lu
8. Yi Zhang

In Neurology

1. Bo Huang
2. L. Garcia
3. Youhai H. Chen
4. X. Wan
5. Jinyan Liu
6. Zhixin Zhang
7. Yi Zhang
8. Shasha Liu

Citations in the corpus

• COVID-19 with Different Severities: A Multicenter Study of Clinical Features (2020, result): “We also found that CD3(1), CD4(1), and CD8(1) T cells were significantly reduced in patients with severe or critical COVID-19, but immunoglobulins were less affected, as previously reported (22).”
• COVID-19: immunopathogenesis and Immunotherapeutics (2020, background): “non-severe and pregnant cases; however, the percentage of non-severe patients with lymphopenia is significantly lower than that of severe patients.(25,26) Interestingly, the B cell number is within the normal range,(12) which is similar to our study findings,(27) indicating that impaired B cells are”
• Review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) based on current evidence (2020, neutral): “A higher levels of IL-6 and IL-10, and lower levels of CD4+T and CD8+T are observed in COVID-19 patients parallel with the severity of the disease [40] .”
• Should we stimulate or suppress immune responses in COVID-19? Cytokine and anti-cytokine interventions (2020, positive): “Intriguingly, while being central to cytokine storm occurrence in SARS-CoV infection [148], IFN-γ was not found to be elevated in the sera or BALFs of patients with severe forms of COVID-19 [22,23,26,149].”
• Immune Response, Inflammation, and the Clinical Spectrum of COVID-19 (2020, background): “NK cells also decreased in both moderate and severe cases of the disease (107, 110).”
• Tocilizumab for the treatment of severe COVID-19 pneumonia with hyperinflammatory syndrome and acute respiratory failure: A single center study of 100 patients in Brescia, Italy (2020, neutral): “Preliminary reports show higher IL-6 levels in COVID-19 patients with worse prognosis and Tocilizumab (TCZ), an anti-IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody, has been used in 20 patients in China with encouraging results [13,14].”
• SARS-CoV-2 infection: The role of cytokines in COVID-19 disease (2020, neutral): “described normal TNF-α levels in patients with COVID-19 [54].”
• The Role of Cytokines including Interleukin-6 in COVID-19 induced Pneumonia and Macrophage Activation Syndrome-Like Disease (2020, background): “A cytokine profile, resembling MAS/sHLH has also been noted in COVID-19 patients, notably increased IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-17, IL-8, TNF and CCL2 [21].”