COVID-19, caused by
SARS-CoV-2, is an acute
self-resolving
disease in most of the
patients, but some
patients can develop a severe illness or even
death. To characterize the host responses and identify potential
biomarkers during
disease progression, we performed a longitudinal
transcriptome analysis for
peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) collected from 4 COVID-19
patients at 4 different
time points from symptom onset to recovery. We found that PBMCs at different COVID-19
disease stages exhibited unique
transcriptome characteristics. SARS-CoV-2 infection dysregulated
innate immunity especially
type I interferon response as well as the disturbed release of inflammatory
cytokines and
lipid mediators, and an aberrant increase of low-density
neutrophils may cause
tissue damage. Activation of
cell death, exhaustion and migratory pathways may
lead to the reduction of
lymphocytes and dysfunction of
adaptive immunity. COVID-19 induced
hypoxia may exacerbate disorders in
blood coagulation. Based on our
analysis, we proposed a set of potential
biomarkers for
monitoring disease progression and predicting the
risk of severity.