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Lee HJ, Zhao Y, Fleming I, Mehta S, Wang X, Wyk BV, Ronca SE, Kang H, Chou CH, Fatou B, Smolen KK, Levy O, Clish CB, Xavier RJ, Steen H, Hafler DA, Love JC, Shalek AK, Guan L, Murray KO, Kleinstein SH, Montgomery RR. Early cellular and molecular signatures correlate with severity of West Nile virus infection. iScience 2023; 26:108387. [PMID: 38047068 PMCID: PMC10692672 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2023] [Revised: 10/04/2023] [Accepted: 10/27/2023] [Indexed: 12/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Infection with West Nile virus (WNV) drives a wide range of responses, from asymptomatic to flu-like symptoms/fever or severe cases of encephalitis and death. To identify cellular and molecular signatures distinguishing WNV severity, we employed systems profiling of peripheral blood from asymptomatic and severely ill individuals infected with WNV. We interrogated immune responses longitudinally from acute infection through convalescence employing single-cell protein and transcriptional profiling complemented with matched serum proteomics and metabolomics as well as multi-omics analysis. At the acute time point, we detected both elevation of pro-inflammatory markers in innate immune cell types and reduction of regulatory T cell activity in participants with severe infection, whereas asymptomatic donors had higher expression of genes associated with anti-inflammatory CD16+ monocytes. Therefore, we demonstrated the potential of systems immunology using multiple cell-type and cell-state-specific analyses to identify correlates of infection severity and host cellular activity contributing to an effective anti-viral response.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ho-Joon Lee
- Department of Genetics and Yale Center for Genome Analysis, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Yujiao Zhao
- Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Ira Fleming
- The Institute of Medical Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Sameet Mehta
- Department of Genetics and Yale Center for Genome Analysis, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Xiaomei Wang
- Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Brent Vander Wyk
- Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Shannon E. Ronca
- Department of Pediatrics, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Heather Kang
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Chih-Hung Chou
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Benoit Fatou
- Department of Pathology, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Kinga K. Smolen
- Department of Pathology, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Ofer Levy
- Department of Infectious Disease, Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Clary B. Clish
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Ramnik J. Xavier
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Center for Computational and Integrative Biology and Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Hanno Steen
- Department of Pediatrics, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - David A. Hafler
- Departments of Neurology and Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA
| | - J. Christopher Love
- The Institute of Medical Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Alex K. Shalek
- The Institute of Medical Science and Engineering, Department of Chemistry, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
| | - Leying Guan
- Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Kristy O. Murray
- Department of Pediatrics, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, TX 77030, USA
| | - Steven H. Kleinstein
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
- Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
| | - Ruth R. Montgomery
- Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA
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Cahill ME, Montgomery RR. Analytical Approaches to Uncover Genetic Associations for Rare Outcomes: Lessons from West Nile Neuroinvasive Disease. Methods Mol Biol 2023; 2585:193-203. [PMID: 36331775 PMCID: PMC9867870 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2760-0_17] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
West Nile viral infection causes severe neuroinvasive disease in less than 1% of infected humans. There are no targeted therapeutics for this serious and potentially fatal disease, and to date no vaccine has been approved for humans. With climate change expected to result in rising incidence of West Nile and other related vector-borne viral infections, there is an increasing need to identify those at risk for serious disease and potential leads for therapeutic and vaccine development. Genetic variation, particularly in genes whose products are either directly or indirectly connected to immune response to infections, is a critical avenue of investigation to identify those at higher risk of clinically apparent West Nile infection. Given the small percent of infections that progress to severe disease and the relatively low numbers of reported infections, it is challenging to conduct well-powered studies to identify genetic factors associated with more severe outcomes. In this chapter, we outline several approaches with the objective to take full advantage of all available data in order to identify genetic factors which lead to increased risk of severe West Nile neuroinvasive disease. These methods are generalizable to other conditions with limited cohort size and rare outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Megan E Cahill
- Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology and the Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA
| | - Ruth R Montgomery
- Department of Internal Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
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