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T cells play a critical role in coronavirus diseases. How they do so in COVID-19 may be revealed by analyzing the epigenetic chromatin accessibility of cis- and trans-regulatory elements and creating transcriptomic immune profiles. We performed single-cell assay for transposase-accessible chromatin (scATAC) and single-cell RNA (scRNA) sequencing (seq) on the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of severely ill/critical patients (SCPs) infected with COVID-19, moderate patients (MPs), and healthy volunteer controls (HCs). About 76,570 and 107,862 single cells were used, respectively, for analyzing the characteristics of chromatin accessibility and transcriptomic immune profiles by the application of scATAC-seq (nine cases) and scRNA-seq (15 cases). The scATAC-seq detected 28,535 different peaks in the three groups; among these peaks, 41.6 and 10.7% were located in the promoter and enhancer regions, respectively. Compared to HCs, among the peak-located genes in the total T cells and its subsets, CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells, from SCPs and MPs were enriched with inflammatory pathways, such as mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling pathway. The motifs of TBX21 were less accessible in the CD4+ T cells of SCPs compared with those in MPs. Furthermore, the scRNA-seq showed that the proportion of T cells, especially the CD4+ T cells, was decreased in SCPs and MPs compared with those in HCs. Transcriptomic results revealed that histone-related genes, and inflammatory genes, such as NFKBIA, S100A9, and PIK3R1, were highly expressed in the total T cells, CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells, both in the cases of SCPs and MPs. In the CD4+ T cells, decreased T helper-1 (Th1) cells were observed in SCPs and MPs. In the CD8+T cells, activation markers, such as CD69 and HLA class II genes (HLA-DRA, HLA-DRB1, and HLA-DRB5), were significantly upregulated in SCPs. An integrated analysis of the data from scATAC-seq and scRNA-seq showed some consistency between the approaches. Cumulatively, we have generated a landscape of chromatin epigenetic status and transcriptomic immune profiles of T cells in patients with COVID-19. This has provided a deeper dissection of the characteristics of the T cells involved at a higher resolution than from previously obtained data merely by the scRNA-seq analysis. Our data led us to suggest that the T-cell inflammatory states accompanied with defective functions in the CD4+ T cells of SCPs may be the key factors for determining the pathogenesis of and recovery from COVID-19.
Pubmed ID: 33717140
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Encyclopedia of DNA elements consisting of list of functional elements in human genome, including elements that act at protein and RNA levels, and regulatory elements that control cells and circumstances in which gene is active. Enables scientific and medical communities to interpret role of human genome in biology and disease. Provides identification of common cell types to facilitate integrative analysis and new experimental technologies based on high-throughput sequencing. Genome Browser containing ENCODE and Epigenomics Roadmap data. Data are available for entire human genome.
View all literature mentionsIntegrated database resource consisting of 16 main databases, broadly categorized into systems information, genomic information, and chemical information. In particular, gene catalogs in completely sequenced genomes are linked to higher-level systemic functions of cell, organism, and ecosystem. Analysis tools are also available. KEGG may be used as reference knowledge base for biological interpretation of large-scale datasets generated by sequencing and other high-throughput experimental technologies.
View all literature mentionsQuality control software that perform checks on raw sequence data coming from high throughput sequencing pipelines. This software also provides a modular set of analyses which can give a quick impression of the quality of the data prior to further analysis.
View all literature mentionsSoftware package which provides tools for testing GO terms while accounting for the topology of the GO graph. Different test statistics and different methods for eliminating local similarities and dependencies between GO terms can be implemented and applied.
View all literature mentionsSoftware as R package designed for QC, analysis, and exploration of single cell RNA-seq data. Enable users to identify and interpret sources of heterogeneity from single cell transcriptomic measurements, and to integrate diverse types of single cell data.
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