Impairment of Neutrophil Functions and Homeostasis in COVID-19 Patients: Association With Disease Severity [post]

Chloé Loyer, Arnaud Lapostolle, Tomas Urbina, Alexandre Elabbadi, Jean-Rémi Lavillegrand, Thomas Chaigneau, Coraly Simoes, Julien Dessajan, Cyrielle Desnos, Mélanie Morin-Brureau, Yannick Chantran, Pierre Aucouturier (+4 others)
2021 unpublished
Background Emerging data based on analyses of peripheral and pulmonary immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 increasingly suggest that a dysregulated immune response underpins the development of severe disease in COVID-19 patients. Neutrophils are key components of early innate immunity that, if not tightly regulated, contribute to uncontrolled systemic inflammation. We sought to decipher the role of neutrophil phenotypes, functions, and homeostasis in COVID-19 disease severity and outcome. Methods
more » ... s longitudinal study compares study compares peripheral whole-blood neutrophils from 90 COVID-19 ICU patients with those of 22 SARS-CoV-2 – patients hospitalized for severe community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and 38 healthy controls. We also assessed correlations between these phenotypic and functional indicators and markers of endothelial damage as well as disease severity. Results At ICU admission, the circulating neutrophils of the COVID-19 patients showed continuous basal hyperactivation not seen in CAP patients, associated with higher circulating levels of soluble E- and P-selectin, which reflect platelet and endothelial activation. Furthermore, COVID-19 patients had expanded aged-angiogenic and reverse transmigrated neutrophil subsets — both involved in endothelial dysfunction and vascular inflammation. Simultaneously, COVID-19 patients had significantly lower levels of neutrophil oxidative burst in response to bacterial formyl peptide, an abnormality that was greater in superinfected than non-superinfected COVID-19 patients. Moreover, patients dying of COVID-19 had significantly higher expansion of aged-angiogenic neutrophil subset and greater impairment of oxidative burst response than survivors. Conclusions These data suggest that neutrophil exhaustion may play a central role in the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 and identify angiogenic neutrophils as a potentially harmful subset involved in fatal outcome.
doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1149539/v1 fatcat:p6nyg73lpzee5hjnjpsufxflpa