Untimely TGFβ responses in COVID-19 limit antiviral functions of NK cells

Single cell transcriptomes of flow cytometry-sorted peripheral blood NK cells from COVID-19 patients and healthy controls. Single cell transcriptomes of peripheral blood NK cells from healthy donors stimulated with IL-12 and IL-15 +/- TGF-beta. RNA Sequencing of flow cytometry-sorted peripheral blood NK cells (live CD3-CD14-CD19-CD45+CD56+ lymphocytes) from blood samples longitudinally obtained from 13 severe COVID-19 patients, 11 ambulant COVID-19 patients and 5 healthy controls. For in vitro stimulation, sorted NK cells from healthy donors were cultured in RPMI containing rh-IL12 and rh-IL15 with or without additional rh-TGF-beta. The 10X Genomics platform with the Single Cell 5’ Library & Gel Bead Kit was used for single cell RNA sequencing.