Effector and Regulatory T Cell Receptor Repertoire Analyses in Patients Affected by COVID-19

The quality of the adaptive immune response (AIR) to COVID-19 probably determines the course of the disease. Therefore, a comprehensive knowledge of the immune response to COVID-19 is required to better anticipate its outcome and identify vaccine targets. In particular, the quality of an AIR can be investigated by immunophenotyping (enumerating immune cells and assessing their fitness) and by analyzing the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire.

The cellular components of the AIR will be analyzed by a deep immunophenotyping generating >800 measures assessing immune cells quantitatively and qualitatively (Pitoiset et al.,2018). Combined with supervised and unsupervised analyses, it has the power to detect subtle/hidden abnormalities.

The specificity will be analyzed by studying the global T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire of separated Tregs and Teffs from peripheral blood, as well as by single cell sequencing of cells from bronchoalveolar lavages.

These combined approaches should uncover parameters/abnormalities of the AIR linked to the infection severity and outcome, and lead to a better understanding of the nature of the Tregs and Teffs repertoires against COVID-19. This will have important implications for (i) understanding the pathophysiology of the disease, (ii) discovering biomarkers of severity and (iii) designing treatments and vaccines.