ArticleThe European respiratory journal2024
Single-cell sequencing reveals cellular landscape alterations in the airway mucosa of patients with pulmonary long COVID.
Article in The European respiratory journal, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Clinical practice guideline for long COVID prevention and treatment.The European respiratory journal · 2026Guideline
- SARS-CoV-2 infection produces an IL-33-dependent chronic eosinophilic pneumonia and muco-inflammatory airways disease in Scnn1b-Tg mice.JCI insight · 2026Article
- Clinical, physiological, imaging and molecular responses to cannabis smoking: the Canadian Users of Cannabis Smoke (CANUCK) study.The European respiratory journal · 2026Article
- Dysregulated NK-cell gene expression defines the enduring symptoms of long COVID-19.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Article
- A Unified Map of Airway Interactions: Secretome and Mechanotransduction Loops from Development to Disease.Advances in respiratory medicine · 2025Review
- Airway epithelial SARS-CoV-2 infectious and repair responses: relationships to age, sex, and post-COVID pulmonary syndromes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Post-COVID-19 condition: clinical phenotypes, pathophysiological mechanisms, pathology, and management strategies.The Journal of pathology · 2025Review
- Respiratory burden in post-acute COVID-19 sequelae: a longitudinal study of airway and systemic inflammation and clinical outcomes.ERJ open research · 2025Article
- Challenges and Opportunities for Post-COVID Pulmonary Disease: A Focused Review of Immunomodulation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Revisiting lung cancer immunotherapy in the era of long COVID: mechanistic insights and therapeutic implications.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Review
- A proposed approach to pulmonary long COVID: a viewpoint.The European respiratory journal · 2024Article
- What Single Cell RNA Sequencing Has Taught Us about Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.Tuberculosis and respiratory diseases · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
21 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo elucidate the important cellular and molecular drivers of pulmonary long COVID, we generated a single-cell transcriptomic map of the airway mucosa using bronchial brushings from patients with long COVID who reported persistent pulmonary symptoms.
methodAdults with and without long COVID were recruited from the general community in Greater Vancouver, Canada. The cohort was divided into those with pulmonary long COVID, which was defined as persons with new or worsening respiratory symptoms following ≥12 weeks from their initial acute severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection (n=9); and control subjects defined as SARS-CoV-2 infected persons whose acute respiratory symptoms had fully resolved or individuals who had no history of acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (n=9). These participants underwent bronchoscopy from which a single cell suspension was created from bronchial brush samples and then sequenced.
resultsA total of 56 906 cells were recovered for the downstream analysis, with 34 840 cells belonging to the pulmonary long COVID group, which strikingly showed a unique cluster of neutrophils in the pulmonary long COVID group (p<0.05). Ingenuity Pathway Analysis revealed that the neutrophil degranulation pathway was enriched across epithelial cell clusters. Differential gene expression analysis between the pulmonary long COVID and control groups demonstrated upregulation of inflammatory chemokines and epithelial barrier dysfunction across epithelial cell clusters, as well as over-expression of mucin genes across secretory cell clusters.
conclusionA single-cell transcriptomic landscape of the small airways suggest that neutrophils may play a significant role in mediating the chronic small airway inflammation driving pulmonary symptoms of long COVID.
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