ePoster Presentation 49th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society for Immunology 2021

Long-term perturbation of the transcriptome months after SARS-CoV-2 infection (#189)

Feargal J Ryan 1 , Christopher M Hope 2 3 , Makuitro G Masavuli 4 , Miriam A Lynn 1 , Zelalem A Mekonnen 4 , Arthur EL Yeow 4 , Pablo Garcia-Valtanen 4 , Zahraa Al-Delfi 4 , Jason Gummow 2 , Catherine Ferguson 5 , Stephanie O'Connor 5 , Benjamin AJ Reddi 5 , David Shaw 5 , Chuan Kok-Lim 5 , Jonathan M Gleadle 6 7 , Michael R Beard 8 , Simon C Barry 2 3 , Branka Grubor-Bauk 4 , David J Lynn 1 7
  1. SAHMRI, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  2. Robinson Research Institute, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  3. Woman's and Children's Health Network, North Adelaide, SA, Australia
  4. Basil Hetzel Institute for Transnational Health Research, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  5. Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, SA, Australia
  6. Flinders Medical Centre, Bedford Park, SA, Australia
  7. Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA, Australia
  8. University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a highly infectious respiratory virus which is the causative agent behind the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It is increasingly clear that recovered individuals, even those who had mild COVID-19, can suffer from persistent symptoms for many months after infection, which is popularly referred to as ‘long COVID’. However despite the plethora of research on COVID-19 relatively little is known about the molecular underpinnings of these long-term effects. We have undertaken an integrated analysis of immune responses in blood at a transcriptional, cellular, and serological level at 12-, 16-, and 24-weeks post-infection (wpi) in 69 patients recovering from mild, moderate, severe, or critical COVID-19 in comparison to healthy uninfected controls. We identified significant perturbations to gene expression in COVID-19 convalescents until at least 6 months post-infection. This was marked by hundreds of differentially expressed genes, a strong up regulation of cell cycle and infection related processes and alterations in non-coding RNAs such as MALAT1. Blood transcriptional module analysis highlighted variable rates of recovery in the transcriptome of COVID-19 convalescents, correlations between the antibody response and transcriptome and associations with ongoing symptoms. In conclusion, variation in the rate of recovery from infection at a cellular and transcriptional level may explain the persistence of symptoms associated with long COVID in some patients.