Work

Single-cell immune profiling and validation of PBMCs in the onset of and recovery from herpes zoster

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: Immune cells play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of herpes zoster virus infection, yet their precise contribution to disease progression remains incompletely understood. In this study, we used single-cell sequencing to analyze the distribution of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) according to different stages of herpes zoster. Our findings demonstrated a detailed immune cell profile in the onset of and recovery from herpes zoster, revealing proportion alterations of the subpopulations. Gene expression information reveals that herpes zoster changes the cellular state compared to healthy controls. The enrichment analysis of cell subpopulations including MPs, B cells, CD8 teff cells and neutrophils revealed changes in signaling responses, transcriptional activity, and cytokine production, exhibiting a heterogeneous immune response to herpes zoster infection. We then surveyed the routine blood data of 1000 patients with herpes zoster, in which the changes in lymphocytes and monocytes were consistent with the single-cell seq results. In addition, the validation of the immune cell clusters distribution using flow cytometry contained 90 samples, we also identified a consistent alteration with single cell-sequencing. These results collectively provide deep insight into the immune profile during herpes zoster progression and provide an indispensable resource for future development of clinical treatment strategy.

Source: Communications Biology

DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-07289-w