Meta-analysis of COVID-19 single-cell studies confirms eight key immune responses

Several single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) studies analyzing immune response to COVID-19 infection have been recently published. Most of these studies have small sample sizes, which limits the conclusions that can be made with high confidence. By re-analyzing these data in a standardized manner, we validated 8 of the 20 published results across multiple datasets. In particular, we found a consistent decrease in T-cells with increasing COVID-19 infection severity, upregulation of type I Interferon signal pathways, presence of expanded B-cell clones in COVID-19 patients but no consistent trend in T-cell clonal expansion. Overall, our results show that the conclusions drawn from scRNA-seq data analysis of small cohorts of COVID-19 patients need to be treated with some caution.