SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMUNOPHENOTYPING OF PERIPHERAL BLOOD LYMPHOCYTES IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF COVID-19

Abstract

We know that a protective antiviral immune response depends on the activation of CD8 + T cells and the destruction of infected cells, but in patients with COVID-19 there is a suppression of the total number of lymphocytes and an effective antiviral immune response. In addition to lymphopenia, patients with COVID-19 have also been shown to have a cytokine release syndrome, especially in severe cases [11,14,23], which clearly indicates disease progression. The innate immune response is the first step in the defense mechanism against viral infection. Pattern recognition receptors in host dendritic cells recognize viral genomic DNA or RNA to initiate the production of cytokines and chemokines [3,6,7,9,11,12,16,24], which in turn attract immune cells such as macrophages, neutrophils and T cells, to the site of infection depending on their source and target cells [2,6,7,14].