TY - JOUR T1 - Whole blood immunophenotyping uncovers immature neutrophil-to-VD2 T-cell ratio as an early prognostic marker for severe COVID-19 JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2020.06.11.147389 SP - 2020.06.11.147389 AU - Guillaume Carissimo AU - Weili Xu AU - Immanuel Kwok AU - Mohammad Yazid Abdad AU - Yi-Hao Chan AU - Siew-Wai Fong AU - Kia Joo Puan AU - Cheryl Yi-Pin Lee AU - Nicholas Kim-Wah Yeo AU - Siti Naqiah Amrun AU - Rhonda Sin-Ling Chee AU - Wilson How AU - Stephrene Chan AU - Eugene Bingwen Fan AU - Anand Kumar Andiappan AU - Bernett Lee AU - Olaf Rötzschke AU - Barnaby Edward Young AU - Yee-Sin Leo AU - David C. Lye AU - Laurent Renia AU - Lai Guan Ng AU - Anis Larbi AU - Lisa F.P. Ng Y1 - 2020/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/12/2020.06.11.147389.abstract N2 - SARS-CoV-2 is the novel coronavirus responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic. Severe complications are observed only in a small proportion of infected patients but the cellular mechanisms underlying this progression are still unknown. Comprehensive flow cytometry of whole blood samples from 54 COVID-19 patients revealed a dramatic increase in the number of immature neutrophils. This increase strongly correlated with disease severity and was associated with elevated IL-6 and IP-10 levels, two key players in the cytokine storm. The most pronounced decrease in cell counts was observed for CD8 T-cells and VD2 γδ T-cells, which both exhibited increased differentiation and activation. ROC analysis revealed that the count ratio of immature neutrophils to CD8 or VD2 T-cells predicts pneumonia onset (0.9071) as well as hypoxia onset (0.8908) with high sensitivity and specificity. It would thus be a useful prognostic marker for preventive patient management and improved healthcare resource management.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -