FEBS Open Bio (Jan 2023)

Transcriptional dynamics of granulocytes in direct response to incubation with SARS‐CoV‐2

  • Daigo Nakazawa,
  • Yohei Takeda,
  • Masatoshi Kanda,
  • Utano Tomaru,
  • Haruko Ogawa,
  • Takashi Kudo,
  • Satoka Shiratori‐Aso,
  • Kanako Watanabe‐Kusunoki,
  • Yusho Ueda,
  • Atsuko Miyoshi,
  • Fumihiko Hattanda,
  • Saori Nishio,
  • Ryo Uozumi,
  • Akihiro Ishizu,
  • Tatsuya Atsumi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/2211-5463.13500
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 60 – 71

Abstract

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Severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is characterized by acute respiratory distress syndrome and multiple organ dysfunction, in which the host immune response plays a pivotal role. Excessive neutrophil activation and subsequent superfluity of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) can lead to tissue damage, and several studies have shown the involvement of neutrophils in severe COVID‐19. However, the detailed responses of each neutrophil subset to SARS‐CoV‐2 infection has not been fully described. To explore this issue, we incubated normal‐density granulocytes (NDGs) and low‐density granulocytes (LDGs) with different viral titers of SARS‐CoV‐2. NDGs form NETs with chromatin fibers in response to SARS‐CoV‐2, whereas LDGs incubated with SARS‐CoV‐2 display a distinct morphology with condensed nuclei and moderate transcriptional changes. Based on these transcriptional changes, we suggest that AGO2 possibly plays a role in LDG regulation in response to SARS‐CoV‐2.

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