Fighting COVID-19 exhausts T cells
Chang Moon
Nature Reviews Immunology (2020)
Lymphopenia is seen in severe cases of COVID-19, but the functional state of T cells in these patients is not known. Based on the retrospective study of 522 patients with COVID-19 and 40 healthy controls from Wuhan, China, this preprint study found that the age-dependent and clinical severity-dependent reduction in T cell numbers inversely correlates with serum levels of TNF, IL-6 and IL-10. The expression of T cell exhaustion markers (PD1 and TIM3) was assessed in peripheral blood cells from 14 patients with COVID-19 and 3 controls. CD8+ T cells from patients in intensive care units (ICUs) showed increased expression of PD1 compared with patients not in ICUs and healthy controls.