Severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection as a function of the interferon landscape across the respiratory tract of COVID-19 patients.

Publié dans: bioRxiv 2021 Mar; ():

Auteurs: Sposito B, Broggi A, Pandolfi L, Crotta S, Ferrarese R, Sisti S, Clementi N, Ambrosi A, Liu E, Frangipane V, Saracino L, Marongiu L, Facchini FA, Bottazzi A, Fossali T, Colombo R, Clementi M, Tagliabue E, Pontiroli AE, Meloni F, Wack A, Mancini N, Zanoni I

Résumé

The COVID-19 outbreak driven by SARS-CoV-2 has caused more than 2.5 million deaths globally, with the most severe cases characterized by over-exuberant production of immune-mediators, the nature of which is not fully understood. Interferons of the type I (IFN-I) or type III (IFN-III) families are potent antivirals, but their role in COVID-19 remains debated. Our analysis of gene and protein expression along the respiratory tract shows that IFNs, especially IFN-III, are over-represented in the lower airways of patients with severe COVID-19, while high levels of IFN-III, and to a lesser extent IFN-I, characterize the upper airways of patients with high viral burden but reduced disease risk or severity; also, IFN expression varies with abundance of the cell types that produce them. Our data point to a dynamic process of inter- and intra-family production of IFNs in COVID-19, and suggest that IFNs play opposing roles at distinct anatomical sites.

Lien vers Pubmed [PMID] – 33821280

Lien vers le DOI – 10.1101/2021.03.30.437173