Fig. 3: Immune system response in moderate and severe COVID-19 patients.

a Heatmap depicting the levels of differentially identified proteins in patients with moderate and severe COVID-19. The graphs show the relative intensity of differentially expressed proteins. Proteins included in the heatmap meet the requirement that fold change >2 or <0.5 and p value (t test) of <0.05 comparing severe to moderate patient samples. Color bar represents the relative intensity of identified proteins from −2 to 2. b The interaction diagram of proteins involved in the innate immune response, response to the virus, antigen processing and presentation, and T cell activation. Network nodes and edges represent proteins and protein–protein associations. Green solid lines represent inhibition; gray dotted lines represent GO pathways. Color bar from red to green represents the fold change of protein level from increasing to decreasing. The significance of the pathways represented by −log(p value) (Fisher’s exact test) was shown by color scales with dark blue as most significant. c The interaction diagram of proteins involving in antigen processing and presentation, complement activation, cellular response to chemokine, regulation of immune response, T cell activation, and T cell receptor signaling pathway. Green solid lines represent inhibition; red solid lines represent activation; gray dotted lines represent GO pathways. Color bar from red to green represents the fold change of protein level from increasing to decreasing. The significance of the pathways represented by −log(p value) (Fisher’s exact test) was shown by color scales with dark blue as most significant. d The scatter plot graphs showing two proteins that are potential diagnostic markers for severe COVID-19. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data. For Health group, n = 10; for nCoV Moderate group, n = 9; for nCoV Severe group, n = 5. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.