SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 200 million people worldwide, with more than 4 million associated deaths. Although more than 80% of infected people develop asymptomatic or mild COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 can induce a profound dysregulation of the immune system. Therefore, it is important to investigate whether clinically recovered individuals present immune sequelae. The potential presence of a long-term dysregulation of the immune system could constitute a risk factor for re-infection and the development of other pathologies. Here, we performed a deep analysis of the immune system in 35 COVID-19 recovered individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 compared to 16 healthy donors, by flow cytometry. Samples from COVID-19 individuals were analysed from 12 days to 305 days post-infection. We observed that, 10 months post-infection, recovered COVID-19 patients presented alterations in the values of some T-cell, B-cell, and innate cell subsets compared to healthy controls. Moreover, we found in recovered COVID-19 individuals increased levels of circulating follicular helper type 1 (cTfh1), plasmablast/plasma cells, and follicular dendritic cells (foDC), which could indicate that the Tfh-B-foDC axis might be functional to produce specific immunoglobulins 10 months post-infection. The presence of this axis and the immune system alterations could constitute prognosis markers and could play an important role in potential re-infection or the presence of long-term symptoms in some individuals.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, immune system, flow cytometry, unsupervised algorithms, immune dysregulation, 【초록키워드】 SARS-CoV-2, Prognosis, Symptom, risk factor, immune, Asymptomatic, Immunoglobulin, cells, Re-infection, Mild, T-cell, Pathologies, B-cell, marker, Analysis, deaths, dysregulation, Post-infection, healthy donors, alteration, individual, healthy controls, circulating, recovered COVID-19 patient, performed, Sample, develop, clinically, analysed, functional, induce, individuals, subset, days post-infection, follicular, follicular dendritic cell, infected with SARS-CoV-2, innate cell, 【제목키워드】 Profiling, Flow, individual, System, Comprehensive,