ReviewCells2021
Thymic Aging May Be Associated with COVID-19 Pathophysiology in the Elderly.
Review in Cells, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
31 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- A retrospective cohort study of the efficacy and safety of oral azvudineActa pharmaceutica Sinica. B · 2025Trial
- Review
- Age-associated changes in major lymphocyte subsets and sex-specific patterns in healthy Chinese adults.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- miR-194-5p-mediated suppression of protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 12 (PTPN12) expression in the thymus enhances immunologic functional restoration in aged mice.European journal of medical research · 2026Article
- Spontaneous Pneumomediastinum in COVID-19 and Myasthenic-like Symptom Complications in Two Relatives: A Coincidence or Spike Toxicity with Thymic Response in Predisposed Individuals? Two Clinical Cases with a Comprehensive Literature Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Cancer cachexia-related monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells impair T-cell negative selection and predict immune-related adverse events.Liver research (Beijing, China) · 2025Article
- Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus infection induces thymic atrophy in IFNARVirulence · 2025Article
- Late-onset Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.Rheumatology international · 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
- The use of alpha 1 thymosin as an immunomodulator of the response against SARS-Cov2.Immunity & ageing : I & A · 2023Article
- Aged brain and neuroimmune responses to COVID-19: post-acute sequelae and modulatory effects of behavioral and nutritional interventions.Immunity & ageing : I & A · 2023Review
- COVID-19 and cellular senescence.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2023Review
- Immune cell landscape in symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected adults and children in urban Dhaka, Bangladesh.Immunobiology · 2023Article
- Epidemiology and Clinical Presentation of COVID-19 in Older Adults.Infectious disease clinics of North America · 2023Review
- SARS-CoV-2 variants induce distinct disease and impact in the bone marrow and thymus of mice.iScience · 2023Article
- Exploiting Signal Joint T Cell Receptor Excision Circle to Investigate the Impact of COVID-19 and Autoimmune Diseases on Age Prediction and Immunosenescence.Biomedicines · 2022Article
- Immune defects associated with lower SARS-CoV-2 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine response in aged people.JCI insight · 2022Article
- Analysis of post COVID-19 condition and its overlap with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.Journal of advanced research · 2022Review
- Understanding the epigenetic mechanisms in SARS CoV-2 infection and potential therapeutic approaches.Virus research · 2022Review
- Time-dependent contraction of the SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell responses in convalescent individuals.The journal of allergy and clinical immunology. Global · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and particularly exhibits severe symptoms and mortality in elderly individuals. Mounting evidence shows that the characteristics of the age-related clinical severity of COVID-19 are attributed to insufficient antiviral immune function and excessive self-damaging immune reaction, involving T cell immunity and associated with pre-existing basal inflammation in the elderly. Age-related changes to T cell immunosenescence is characterized by not only restricted T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire diversity, accumulation of exhausted and/or senescent memory T cells, but also by increased self-reactive T cell- and innate immune cell-induced chronic inflammation, and accumulated and functionally enhanced polyclonal regulatory T (Treg) cells. Many of these changes can be traced back to age-related thymic involution/degeneration. How these changes contribute to differences in COVID-19 disease severity between young and aged patients is an urgent area of investigation. Therefore, we attempt to connect various clues in this field by reviewing and discussing recent research on the role of the thymus and T cells in COVID-19 immunity during aging (a synergistic effect of diminished responses to pathogens and enhanced responses to self) impacting age-related clinical severity of COVID-19. We also address potential combinational strategies to rejuvenate multiple aging-impacted immune system checkpoints by revival of aged thymic function, boosting peripheral T cell responses, and alleviating chronic, basal inflammation to improve the efficiency of anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunity and vaccination in the elderly.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.