Reading COVID-19 in 100,000 blood cells
In COVID-19 blood, activated effector cells expand and the resting naive and memory pool drains out. I mapped 100,000 blood cells to show it.
View source on GitHub- cells analyzed
- 100,000cells analyzed50,000 COVID-19, 50,000 healthy
- blood donors
- 2,680blood donors528 COVID-19, 2,153 healthy
- cell type groups
- 21cell type groupsgrouped from 131 raw labels
- cells plotted here
- 24,000cells plotted heredownsampled evenly per condition
Every dot below is one blood cell. Cells that behave alike sit near each other, so the clusters are immune cell populations. Comparing COVID-19 blood against healthy blood shows which populations grow and which ones empty out.
Which populations changed
Each bar compares how common a cell type is in COVID-19 blood against healthy blood. Activated cells that fight infection sit at the top. The resting naive and memory cells they came from sit at the bottom.
- mature T cell12.94xmature T cell: 12.9x more in COVID-19
- B cell6.17xB cell: 6.2x more in COVID-19
- CD8 T6.01xCD8 T: 6.0x more in COVID-19
- classical monocyteclassical monocyte: 5.8x more in COVID-19
- CD4 TCD4 T: 3.8x more in COVID-19
- memory CD4 Tmemory CD4 T: 3.5x more in COVID-19
- monocytemonocyte: 2.5x more in COVID-19
- NK cellNK cell: 1.5x more in COVID-19
- CD14+ monocyteCD14+ monocyte: 1.1x more in COVID-19
- OtherOther: 1.0x more in healthy
- classical monocyte (CD14+CD16-)classical monocyte (CD14+CD16-): 1.4x more in healthy
- CD16+ NK cellCD16+ NK cell: 2.0x more in healthy
- naive B cellnaive B cell: 2.3x more in healthy
- memory B cellmemory B cell: 3.8x more in healthy
- naive CD8 Tnaive CD8 T: 4.0x more in healthy
- naive CD4 Tnaive CD4 T: 4.5x more in healthy
- MAIT cellMAIT cell: 5.0x more in healthy
- central memory CD4 Tcentral memory CD4 T: 7.1x more in healthy
- non-classical monocyte0.12xnon-classical monocyte: 8.3x more in healthy
- effector memory CD8 T0.12xeffector memory CD8 T: 8.3x more in healthy
- effector memory CD4 T0.03xeffector memory CD4 T: 33.3x more in healthy
Plasmablasts are too rare to chart on their own, so they sit inside Other. They are worth calling out anyway: 362 of the 398 found came from COVID-19 blood, roughly a 10x expansion. These are the cells that mass-produce antibodies.