Two studies out of China have used immune profiling platform developed by 10X Genomics, one of the partners in the iReceptor Plus Consortium, to examine the immune systems of COVID-19 patients at the level of single cells. Liao et al. focused on the lung immune system, because responses in the lung to the virus are one of the primary killers of infected individuals, and showed that expanded T-cell clones were associated with mild cases of COVID-19 (medRxiv DOI). Huang et al. discovered specific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19 disease, by examining AIRR-seq B-cell repertoires from blood of COVID-19 patients (medRxiv DOI). One of the main goals of the iReceptor Plus single cell analysis team and the AIRR Community is working with 10X Genomics to develop repositories for storing, comparing and sharing these cutting-edge data from the analysis of thousands of single B-cells and T-cells in health and disease.
In answer to the AIRR Communities recent call for the sharing of COVID-19 related AIRR-seq data, an iReceptor Turnkey Repository has been established to curate and store COVID-19 AIRR-seq data (covid19.ireceptor.org). This repository will be part of the AIRR Data Commons and will be integrated into and queryable from the iReceptor Gateway.
Note that currently there are no publicly available COVID-19 AIRR-seq data sets available, although we anticipate public data being released soon. Please follow along on the iReceptor Gateway or on the b-t.cr COVID-19 AIRR-seq public data page. If you have publicly available AIRR-seq data that you would like to share, please contact us at support@ireceptor.org.