Integrated plasma proteomic and single-cell immune signaling network signatures demarcate mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19

Cell Rep Med. 2022 Jul 19;3(7):100680. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100680. Epub 2022 Jun 28.

Abstract

The biological determinants underlying the range of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) clinical manifestations are not fully understood. Here, over 1,400 plasma proteins and 2,600 single-cell immune features comprising cell phenotype, endogenous signaling activity, and signaling responses to inflammatory ligands are cross-sectionally assessed in peripheral blood from 97 patients with mild, moderate, and severe COVID-19 and 40 uninfected patients. Using an integrated computational approach to analyze the combined plasma and single-cell proteomic data, we identify and independently validate a multi-variate model classifying COVID-19 severity (multi-class area under the curve [AUC]training = 0.799, p = 4.2e-6; multi-class AUCvalidation = 0.773, p = 7.7e-6). Examination of informative model features reveals biological signatures of COVID-19 severity, including the dysregulation of JAK/STAT, MAPK/mTOR, and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) immune signaling networks in addition to recapitulating known hallmarks of COVID-19. These results provide a set of early determinants of COVID-19 severity that may point to therapeutic targets for prevention and/or treatment of COVID-19 progression.

Keywords: COVID-19; CyTOF; Olink; PBMC; SARS-CoV-2; immunophenotyping; mass cytometry; phosphosignaling response; proteomics; stacked generalization.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19*
  • Humans
  • NF-kappa B / metabolism
  • Proteomics
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Signal Transduction

Substances

  • NF-kappa B

Associated data

  • Dryad/10.5061/dryad.9cnp5hqmn