Early cellular and molecular signatures correlate with severity of West Nile virus infection

• DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108387
• Publication Date: 2023-11-02T02:49:24Z
• Authors: Ho-Joon Lee; Yujiao Zhao; Ira Fleming; Sameet Mehta; Xiaomei Wang; Brent Vander Wyk; Shannon E. Ronca; Heather Kang; Chih-Hung Chou; Benoit Fatou; Kinga K. Smolen; Ofer Levy; Clary B. Clish; Ramnik J. Xavier; Hanno Steen; David A. Hafler; J. Christopher Love; Alex K. Shalek; Leying Guan; Kristy O. Murray; Steven H. Kleinstein; Ruth R. Montgomery
• Keywords: West Nile virus

Infection with West Nile virus (WNV) drives a wide range of responses, from asymptomatic to flu-like symptoms/fever or severe cases encephalitis and death. To identify cellular molecular signatures distinguishing WNV severity, we employed systems profiling peripheral blood severely ill individuals infected WNV. We interrogated immune responses longitudinally acute infection through convalescence employing single-cell protein transcriptional complemented matched serum proteomics metabolomics as well multi-omics analysis. At the time point, detected both elevation pro-inflammatory markers in innate cell types reduction regulatory T activity participants infection, whereas donors had higher expression genes associated anti-inflammatory CD16