Immune suppression in the early stage of COVID-19 disease
Wenmin Tian, Nan Zhang, Ronghua Jin, Yingmei Feng, Siyuan Wang, Shuaixin Gao, Ruqin Gao, Guizhen Wu, Di Tian, Wenjie Tan, Chen Yang, George F. Gao, Catherine C. L. Wong
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 has become a worldwide pandemic. The pathogenesis of this infectious disease and how it differs from other drivers of pneumonia is unclear. Here we analyze urine samples from COVID-19 infection cases, healthy donors and non-COVID-19 pneumonia cases using quantitative proteomics. The molecular changes suggest that immunosuppression and tight junction impairment occur in the early stage of COVID-19 infection. Further subgrouping of COVID-19 patients into moderate and severe types shows that an activated immune response emerges in severely affected patients. We propose a two-stage mechanism of pathogenesis for this unusual viral infection. Our data advance our understanding of the clinical features of COVID-19 infections and provide a resource for future mechanistic and therapeutics studies.