Long Term Longitudinal Analysis of Peripheral Blood Transcriptome in COVID-19 Patients

Long-term observation of transcriptome dynamics of COVID-19 patients is urgently needed. In this report, we performed the longitudinal peripheral blood transcriptome profiling after diagnosis in five patients, and found that patients' blood transcriptomes undergo dramatic and consistent changes in early recovery stage (ERS). Meanwhile, the blood transcriptome did not fully return to the healthy state even after more than one month of recovery. We also realized that differential expressed genes (DEGs) are enriched in biological processes of antigen processing and related processes, and promoter regions of these genes enrich key transcription factors (TFs) involved in T cell differentiation and activation. We further provided potential mechanisms underlying these orchestrated processes, by revealing these specific TFs mediated gene co-expression network. These findings might be helpful in understanding both coordinated transcriptome changes caused by SARS-Cov-2 and long-term recovery of the human blood transcriptome.Funding: This study was supported by National science and technology major projects (2018ZX10305410), and National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0900801).Conflict of Interest: None.Ethical Approval: The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of Southern Theater Command. Written informed consent was regularly obtained from all patients.