ReviewHuman vaccines & immunotherapeutics2021
The role of the thymus in COVID-19 disease severity: implications for antibody treatment and immunization.
Review in Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 53 citations in OpenAlex.
- Integrative transcriptomic and proteomic profiling reveals altered thymocyte development and microenvironment remodeling during natural thymic atrophy.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Article
- Endogenous thymic regeneration: restoring T cell production following injury.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2025Review
- Radiological changes in the thymus in patients who have had COVID-19 and in vaccinated persons who have not had COVID-19: a CT study.Radiologie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Review
- Systematic evaluation of therapeutic effectiveness of Azvudine in treating COVID-19 hospitalized patients: a retrospective cohort study.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- Higher plasma levels of thymosin-α1 are associated with a lower waning of humoral response after COVID-19 vaccination: an eight months follow-up study in a nursing home.Immunity & ageing : I & A · 2023Article
- Role of different types of RNA molecules in the severity prediction of SARS-CoV-2 patients.Pathology, research and practice · 2023Article
- In silico transcriptional analysis of asymptomatic and severe COVID-19 patients reveals the susceptibility of severe patients to other comorbidities and non-viral pathological conditions.Human gene (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2023Article
- Intrathymic somatotropic circuitry: consequences upon thymus involution.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
- Immune defects associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine response in aged people.JCI insight · 2022Article
- Genetic alterations, RNA expression profiling and DNA methylation of HMGB1 in malignancies.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2022Article
- A cautionary note on altered pace of aging in the COVID-19 era.Forensic science international. Genetics · 2022Article
- Aging versus youth: Endocrine aspects of vulnerability for COVID-19.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2022Review
- Article
- Circulating mature dendritic cells homing to the thymus promote thymic epithelial cells involution via the Jagged1/Notch3 axis.Cell death discovery · 2021Article
- Claims and reasons about mild COVID-19 in children.New microbes and new infections · 2021Review
- Common variants at 21q22.3 locus influenceiScience · 2021Article
- Review
- COVID-19 hospitalization rates rise exponentially with age, inversely proportional to thymic T-cell production.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2021Article
- COVID-19: A Challenge to Physiology of Aging.Frontiers in physiology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The thymus is a largely neglected organ but plays a significant role in the regulation of adaptive immune responses. The effect of aging on the thymus and immune senescence is well established, and the resulting inflammaging is found to be implicated in the development of many chronic diseases including atherosclerosis, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Both aging and diseases of inflammaging are associated with severe COVID-19 disease, and a dysfunctional thymus may be a predisposing factor. In addition, insults on the thymus during childhood may lead to abnormal thymic function and may explain severe COVID-19 disease among younger individuals; therefore, measurement of thymic function may assist COVID-19 care. Those with poor thymic function may be treated prophylactically with convalescent serum or recombinant antibodies, and they may respond better to high-dose or adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccines. Treatments inducing thymic regeneration may improve patients' overall health and may be incorporated in COVID-19 management.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.