Single-cell immunology of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Nat Biotechnol. 2022 Jan;40(1):30-41. doi: 10.1038/s41587-021-01131-y. Epub 2021 Dec 20.

Abstract

Gaining a better understanding of the immune cell subsets and molecular factors associated with protective or pathological immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2 could aid the development of vaccines and therapeutics for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Single-cell technologies, such as flow cytometry, mass cytometry, single-cell transcriptomics and single-cell multi-omic profiling, offer considerable promise in dissecting the heterogeneity of immune responses among individual cells and uncovering the molecular mechanisms of COVID-19 pathogenesis. Single-cell immune-profiling studies reported to date have identified innate and adaptive immune cell subsets that correlate with COVID-19 disease severity, as well as immunological factors and pathways of potential relevance to the development of vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. For facilitation of integrative studies and meta-analyses into the immunology of SARS-CoV-2 infection, we provide standardized, download-ready versions of 21 published single-cell sequencing datasets (over 3.2 million cells in total) as well as an interactive visualization portal for data exploration.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • COVID-19 / genetics
  • COVID-19 / immunology*
  • COVID-19 / pathology*
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Visualization*
  • Datasets as Topic*
  • Humans
  • Immunity, Innate*
  • SARS-CoV-2 / immunology*
  • Single-Cell Analysis*
  • Transcriptome