Fig. 7: Persistent dysregulation of immune cell gene expression two months following COVID-19.

a PCA of the Wave 2 PBMC transcriptomic data, including pre-infection, infection and recovery samples (taken 2 months after the acute illness). Each point represents a sample. Arrows link recovery samples to the pre-infection sample from the same individual. b Paired violin plots for differentially expressed genes in recovery versus pre-infection samples (n = 24 samples from 12 individuals). Grey lines link each individual’s pre- infection sample to their recovery sample; these samples are represented by points. Shaded areas indicate kernel density estimates. For boxplots, centre=median, upper bound=upper quartile, lower bound=lower quartile. c All significantly enriched (5% FDR) pathway terms for the differentially expressed genes in recovery versus pre-infection samples. Overrepresentation testing was performed for each gene set with a one-sided Fisher’s exact test.