Cutting Edge: Distinct B Cell Repertoires Characterize Patients with Mild and Severe COVID-19.

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paper: Hoehn, K. B., Ramanathan, P., Unterman, A., Sumida, T. S., Asashima, H., Hafler, D. A., Kaminski, N., Dela C. C. S., Sealfon, S. C., Bukreyev, A. and Kleinstein, S. H. (2021). Cutting Edge: Distinct B Cell Repertoires Characterize Patients with Mild and Severe COVID-19. Journal of immunology https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.2100135
contributor: Steven Kleinstein
contributor_organization: Yale University
contributor_email: steven.kleinstein@yale.edu
    • description: Increased frequency of memory B cells among total B cells in mildly symptomatic vs hospitalized COVID-19 patients approximately one month after onset of symptoms.
    • exact_source: Figure 2
    • tissue: PBMC
    • immune_exposure: COVID-19 infection
    • cohort: Mildly symptomatic and hospitalized COVID-19 patients
    • comparison: Mild vs severe infection approximately one month after the onset of symptoms
    • repository_id: GSE164381
    • platform: 10X Genomics scRNA-seq + BCR
    • response_components: Memory B cells
    • response_behavior: up
    PMID
    cord_uid vrdq9dgc
    authors
    Hoehn, Kenneth B et al
    abstract
    Protective immunity against COVID-19 likely depends on the production of SARS-CoV-2-specific plasma cells and memory B cells postinfection or postvaccination. Previous work has found that germinal center reactions are disrupted in severe COVID-19. This may adversely affect long-term immunity against reinfection. Consistent with an extrafollicular B cell response, patients with severe COVID-19 have elevated frequencies of clonally expanded, class-switched, unmutated plasmablasts. However, it is unclear whether B cell populations in individuals with mild COVID-19 are similarly skewed. In this study, we use single-cell RNA sequencing of B cells to show that in contrast to patients with severe COVID-19, subjects with mildly symptomatic COVID-19 have B cell repertoires enriched for clonally diverse, somatically hypermutated memory B cells ∼30 d after the onset of symptoms. This provides evidence that B cell responses are less disrupted in mild COVID-19 and result in the production of memory B cells.
    status
    available
    journal
    Journal of immunology
    manuscript url
    https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.2100135