Hunting for the immune cells that predispose people to severe COVID-19 – UChicago News

Our results suggest that people who already have M1 macrophages activated in the lungs when infected with COVID-19 might be more likely to develop very severe inflammation from the virus, said Chen.

Elderly people and those with certain conditions like hypertension or diabetesalready known to be prone to more severe COVID-19 symptomsmay have higher levels of the M1 macrophages, she added.

Her team went on to show that antibodiessimilar to those already used clinically to treat COVID-19helped M2 macrophages clear the SARS-CoV-2 virus. More work is needed to show whether the observations hold true in humans, but the findings could help inform the prevention or treatment of severe COVID-19 in the most at-risk patients. And Chen is already thinking ahead to her next experiments with the stem cell-derived organoids.

This model system is useful for decoding the molecular mechanisms behind not only COVID-19, but other infectious diseases, said Chen.

In the future, her group hopes to make more complex mini-organs that include not only lung and immune cells, but blood vessels, nerves, and other supporting cell types.

Citation: Differential effects of macrophage subtypes on SARS-CoV-2 infection in a human pluripotent stem cell-derived model, Lian QZ et al,Nature Communications, April 19, 2022. DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-29731-5

Funding: National Institute of Health, Cancer Research Foundation Young Investigator Award, Janet D. Rowley Discovery Fund, Hong Kong Health and Medical Research Fund, Guangzhou Women and Childrens Medical Centre, Shenzhen Science and Technology Program, Tsinghua University Spring Breeze Fund, the National Key R&D Program of China and the National Natural Science Grant of China.

Adapted from an article by Sarah C.P. Williams first published by the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

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