T cell anergy in COVID-19 reflects virus persistence and poor outcomes

Renner, K.; Mueller, C.; Tiefenboeck, C.; Salewski, J.-N.; Winter, F.; Buchtler, S.; Malfertheiner, M. V.; Lubnow, M.; Lunz, D.; Graf, B.; Hitzenbichler, F.; Hanses, F.; Poeck, H.; Kreutz, M.; Orso, E.; Burkhardt, R.; Niedermair, T.; Brochhausen, C.; Gessner, A.; Salzberger, B.; Mack, M.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can lead to severe pneumonia and hyperinflammation. So far, insufficient or excessive T cell responses were described in patients. We applied novel approaches to analyze T cell reactivity and showed that T anergy is already present in non-ventilated COVID-19 patients, very pronounced in ventilated patients, strongly associated with virus persistence and reversible with clinical recovery. T cell activation was measured by downstream effects on responder cells like basophils, plasmacytoid dendritic cells, monocytes and neutrophils in whole blood and proved to be much more meaningful than classical readouts with PBMCs. Monocytes responded stronger in males than females and IL-2 partially reversed T cell anergy. Downstream markers of T cell anergy were also found in fresh blood samples of critically ill patients with severe T cell anergy. Based on our data we were able to develop a score to predict fatal outcomes and to identify patients that may benefit from strategies to overcome T cell anergy.