New Paper (Other): Immune determinants of COVID-19 disease presentation and severity

[marouenbg]

Title: Immune determinants of COVID-19 disease presentation and severity

General Information

Please paste a link to the paper or a citation here:

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01202-8

What is the paper's Manubot-style citation?

Citation: [@doi:10.1038/s41591-020-01202-8]

Is this paper primarily relevant to Background or Pathogenesis?

• [ ] Background
• [x] Pathogenesis
• [ ] Methods

Please list some keywords (3-10) that help identify the relevance of this paper to COVID-19

• keyword 1 immunity
• keyword 2 SARS-CoV-2
• keyword 3 pathogenesis

Please note the publication / review status

• [ ] Pre-print
• [x] New Peer-Reviewed Paper
• [ ] Peer-Reviewed Paper Pre-2020

Which areas of expertise are particularly relevant to the paper?

• [ ] virology
• [ ] epidemiology
• [ ] biostatistics
• [x] immunology
• [ ] pharmacology
• [ ] other:

[marouenbg]

Summary

Suggested questions to answer about each paper:

• What did they analyze? This is a perspective paper that analyze the immune determinants to COVID-19 onset and progression. It has been observed that the most important determinant of disease severity is age, with individuals over 65 years having the greatest risk of requiring intensive care, and men are more susceptible than women.

• What methods did they use? This paper reviewed the determinants of immunity that could explain the differences in disease severity in man vs women and young vs old individuals, and low vs high risk individuals in general.

• Does this paper study COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, or a related disease and/or virus? This paper studies the immune response in relation to the severity of COVID-19.

• What is the main finding (or a few main takeaways)? The fundamental sex differences that could explain the differential infection rates between men and women are stronger type I IFN responses in women and the presence of a common sensor of viruses TLR7, on the X chromosome. Differences by age are explained by the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), type I IFN responses, and skewing T cells from T helper type 1 (TH1) toward more TH2 in young children.

• What does this paper tell us about the background and/or diagnostics/therapeutics for COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2? This paper attempts to provide an answer for some discrepancies in the severity of COVID-19 by reviewing the differences in the immune systems of low vs high risk patients. For example, in contrast to other respiratory viral infections, young children seem to be less severely affected by COVID-19.

• Do you have any concerns about methodology or the interpretation of these results beyond this analysis? Nothing to report.

Any comments or notes?

The recent observations that long-lasting symptoms of COVID-19 (long COVID) may occur, brought the question about the determinants of such evolution and its distribution. For example, although women are less likely to be infected in general, they are seemingly more likely than men to develop long COVID.