Comparative study of the lymphocyte change between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 pneumonia cases suggesting uncontrolled inflammation might not be the main reason of tissue injury

Yishan Zheng; Zhen Huang; Guoping Ying; Xia Zhang; Wei Ye; Zhiliang Hu; Chunmei Hu; Hongxia Wei; Yi Zeng; Yun Chi; Cong Cheng; Feishen Lin; Hu Lu; Lingyan Xiao; Yan Song; Chunming Wang; Yongxiang Yi; Lei Dong

the impotent response of B cells may fail to restrict the virus expansion and release of free virions in vivo, which promotes the infection. 7 Thses findings, first, demonstrate that the infection impacts on different lymphocyte subgroups evenly, and more interestingly, suggest that abnormality in cells that regulate the adaptive immunity may be responsible for the reduction of lymphocytes. For instance, H5N1 infection causes lymphocytopenia through dendritic cell (DC) dysfunction, 12 suggesting the function of key antigen-presenting cells can be drastically impaired during the infection. According to a study in rats, the myeloid cells also express the 2019-nCoV receptor ACE2; 13 Moreover, recent imaging findings and postmortem biopsies reports indicate that the infection can potentially damage other organs than the lung, including the kidney, heart, liver and the testis. thus, we should consider the possibility of the virus infecting these cells, which is supported by the significant decrease in the platelet counts in both grade 2-group and grade 3-group COVID-19 patients and the reduced count of trilineage in the bone marrow . [14] [15] [16] In correspondence with pathological findings, we also All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.