A virus-specific monocyte inflammatory phenotype is induced by SARS-CoV2 at the immune-epithelial interface

• DOI: 10.1101/2021.09.29.462202
• Publication Date: 2021-09-29T23:15:33Z
• Authors: Juliette Leon; Daniel A. Michelson; Judith Olejnik; Kaitavjeet Chowdhary; Hyung Suk Oh; Adam J. Hume; Silvia Galván-Peña; Yangyang Zhu; Felicia Chen; Brinda Vijaykumar; Liang Yang; Elena Crestani; Lael M. Yonker; David M. Knipe; Elke Mühlberger; Christophe Benoist
• Keywords: Monocyte

ABSTRACT Infection by SARS-CoV2 provokes a potentially fatal pneumonia with multiorgan failure, and high systemic inflammation. To gain mechanistic insight ferret out the root of this immune dysregulation, we modeled in vitro co-culture interactions between infected epithelial cells immunocytes. A strong response was induced monocytes B cells, SARS-CoV2-specific inflammatory gene cluster distinct from that seen influenza-A or Ebola virus-infected co-cultures, which reproduced deviations reported blood lung myeloid COVID-19 patients. substantial fraction effect could be after individual transfection several proteins (Spike some non-structural proteins), mediated soluble factors, but not via transcriptional induction. This greatly muted healthy children, perhaps clue to age-dependency COVID-19. These results suggest malfunction is rooted earliest perturbations induces epithelia.