High baseline frequencies of natural killer cells are associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection

Elizabeth K. Graydon; Allison M.W. Malloy; Kawthar Machmach; Peifang Sun; Dominic Paquin-Proulx; Stephen Lizewski; Rhonda Lizewski; Dawn L. Weir; Carl W. Goforth; Stephen K. Anderson; Andrew G. Letizia; Edward Mitre

doi:10.1016/j.crimmu.2023.100064

High baseline frequencies of natural killer cells are associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection

Elizabeth K. Graydon, Allison M.W. Malloy, Kawthar Machmach, Peifang Sun, Dominic Paquin-Proulx, Stephen Lizewski, Rhonda Lizewski, Dawn L. Weir, Carl W. Goforth, Stephen K. Anderson, Andrew G. Letizia, Edward Mitre^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

This study tested the hypothesis that high frequencies of natural killer (NK) cells are protective against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Samples were utilized from the COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines study, a prospective, observational study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in which participants were enrolled prior to infection and then serially monitored for development of symptomatic or asymptomatic infection. Frequencies and phenotypes of NK cells (CD3⁻CD14⁻CD19⁻CD56⁺) were assessed by flow cytometry. Individuals that developed asymptomatic infections were found to have higher pre-infection frequencies of total NK cells compared to symptomatic individuals (10.61% [SD 4.5] vs 8.33% [SD 4.6], p = 0.011). Circulating total NK cells decreased over the course of infection, reaching a nadir at 4 weeks, while immature NK cells increased, a finding confirmed by multidimensional reduction analysis. These results indicate that NK cells likely play a key role in controlling the severity of clinical illness in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Original language	English
Article number	100064
Journal	Current Research in Immunology
Volume	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crimmu.2023.100064
State	Published - Jan 2023
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Asymptomatic
Natural killer cells
NK cells
SARS-CoV-2
Symptomatic

Access to Document

10.1016/j.crimmu.2023.100064

Cite this

Graydon, E. K., Malloy, A. M. W., Machmach, K., Sun, P., Paquin-Proulx, D., Lizewski, S., Lizewski, R., Weir, D. L., Goforth, C. W., Anderson, S. K., Letizia, A. G., & Mitre, E. (2023). High baseline frequencies of natural killer cells are associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Current Research in Immunology, 4, Article 100064. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crimmu.2023.100064

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title = "High baseline frequencies of natural killer cells are associated with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection",

abstract = "This study tested the hypothesis that high frequencies of natural killer (NK) cells are protective against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection. Samples were utilized from the COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines study, a prospective, observational study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in which participants were enrolled prior to infection and then serially monitored for development of symptomatic or asymptomatic infection. Frequencies and phenotypes of NK cells (CD3−CD14−CD19−CD56+) were assessed by flow cytometry. Individuals that developed asymptomatic infections were found to have higher pre-infection frequencies of total NK cells compared to symptomatic individuals (10.61% [SD 4.5] vs 8.33% [SD 4.6], p = 0.011). Circulating total NK cells decreased over the course of infection, reaching a nadir at 4 weeks, while immature NK cells increased, a finding confirmed by multidimensional reduction analysis. These results indicate that NK cells likely play a key role in controlling the severity of clinical illness in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.",

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doi = "10.1016/j.crimmu.2023.100064",

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AU - Lizewski, Stephen

AU - Lizewski, Rhonda

AU - Weir, Dawn L.

AU - Goforth, Carl W.

AU - Anderson, Stephen K.

AU - Letizia, Andrew G.

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