Reduced naïve and increased cytotoxic effector and exhausted CD8+T cells in the hospitalized group
Similar to total CD4+T cells, there was no statistically significant difference in total CD8+T cells (p = 0.317). However, there was an increase in the naïve CD8+T cells seen in the non-hospitalized patients with a median of 27.82% 27.82 (IQR 14.84-37.89) compared to14.31 (IQR 4.485-36.240) in the hospitalized group (p = 0.010). In addition, non-hospitalized group had higher frequency of cells with lower cytotoxic characteristics. Examples include effector memory (TEM) CD27+CD28+ CD8+ T cell 43.95% [IQR 32.92-59.75] vs . (28.71 [IQR 21.38-45.66], p = 0.01) and revertant effector memory (TEMRA) CD27+CD28- CD8+ T cells 21.07% [IQR 15.00-28.39] vs.16.33% [IQR 10.29-27.73], p = 0.029), in the non-hospitalizedvs. hospitalized group (Table 3).
In contrast, hospitalized group had a high percentage of cytotoxic TEM CD27-CD28- CD8+T cells with a median 47.25% (IQR 24.14-57.68) compared to 25.76% (IQR 15.45-40.84) in the non-hospitalized group (p = 0.002). Moreover, percentage of cytotoxic exhausted (CD57+PD-1+) CD8+ T cells were higher in the hospitalized group with a median of 16.86% (IQR 11.35-27.96) vs . 11.98% (IQR 8.96-15.41), p = 0.008) (Table 3). Hospitalized group had higher frequency of cells with cytotoxic characteristics.