Supplementary Material for: Human blood NC/CL cells are heterogeneously presented in severe COVID-19 and correlate with disease activity

The COVID-19 is highly heterogeneous, ranging from cases with mild disease with an almost asymptomatic carrier to severe cases in which the disease evolves rapidly. A better understanding of monocyte response during SARS-Cov-2 infection would highlight potential biomarkers and establish other possible approaches for severe cases. Here, the promising finding was that blood NC/CL subset was skewed toward NChighCLlow and NClowCLhigh clusters among the severe COVID-19 patients. The NChighCLlow cluster in severe COVID-19 displayed a distinct clinic phenotype, implying a higher 7-day disease progression rate (P=0.019) and a worse 28-day survival (P=0.026). As supported, regarding cytokine profile in context of SARS-Cov-2 infection, it was identified that circulating NC cells are proinflammatory cells most related to regulatory cells, while CL subset displayed an effective capacity to virus. These findings have implications towards optimizing evaluation in severe COVID-19, and developing strategies that target altered balance of NC/CL cell subsets.

COVID-19病毒感染具有高度异质性，其病例范围从几乎无症状的轻度疾病携带者到病情迅速恶化的重症病例。深入了解SARS-CoV-2感染过程中单核细胞的反应，将有助于揭示潜在的生物标志物，并为重症病例建立其他可能的处理方法。在本研究中，一个引人注目的发现是，在重症COVID-19患者中，血液中的NC/CL亚群偏向于NChighCLlow和NClowCLhigh簇。重症COVID-19中的NChighCLlow簇表现出独特的临床表型，暗示了更高的7天疾病进展率（P=0.019）和更差的28天存活率（P=0.026）。正如支持所述，在SARS-CoV-2感染背景下，循环中的NC细胞是促炎细胞，与调节细胞最为相关，而CL亚群则显示出对病毒的抑制能力。这些发现对于优化重症COVID-19的评估以及开发针对NC/CL细胞亚群失衡的改变策略具有重要意义。