“Early immune pathology and persistent dysregula

“Early immune pathology and persistent dysregulation characterise severe COVID-19”

Longitudinal analysis of Covid patients in UK, identifying patterns of immune response as predictive of disease course.

Sounds really, really familiar. Further evidence that severe Covid tied to immune dysfunction, specifically lack of sufficient adaptive response (B and T lymphocytes) with continued innate immune response/activation/hyperinflammation.

Doors is open for leronlimab.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021....20248765v1



“ The NIHR BioResource has allowed us to address two important questions regarding SARS-CoV-2. Firstly, how does the very early immune response in patients who recovered from disease with few or no symptoms, compare with those who experienced severe disease? And secondly, for those patients who experience severe disease, how rapidly does their immune system recover and how might this relate to ‘long COVID’?”

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Listen to Professor Ken Smith discuss the findings with the Naked Scientists
The team found evidence of an early, robust adaptive immune response in those infected individuals whose disease was asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. An adaptive immune response is where the immune system identifies an infection and then produces T cells, B cells and antibodies specific to the virus to fight back. These individuals produced the immune components in larger numbers than patients with more severe COVID-19 managed, and within the first week of infection – after which these numbers rapidly returned to normal. There was no evidence in these individuals of systemic inflammation that can lead to damage in multiple organs.

In patients requiring admission to hospital, the early adaptive immune response was delayed, and profound abnormalities in a number of white cell subsets were present. Also present in the first blood sample taken from these patients was evidence of increased inflammation, something not seen in those with asymptomatic or mild disease. This suggests that an abnormal inflammatory component to the immune response is present even around the time of diagnosis in individuals who progress to severe disease.

The team found that key molecular signatures produced in response to inflammation were present in patients admitted to hospital. They say that these signatures could potentially be used to predict the severity of a patient’s disease, as well as correlating with their risk of COVID-19 associated death.”