Fig. 6: Immunovascular dysfunction in long COVID blood samples.
a, PCA plot of brain fog versus recovered PBMC samples. b, Volcano plot depicting DEGs (red circles) with a log2 fold change > 0.58 or < −0.58 (vertical dashed lines) and P < 0.05 (horizontal dashed line). All DEGs with log2 fold change < 0.58 or > −0.58 and P < 0.05 are also displayed (blue circles). Data were analyzed using a Wald test with multiple comparisons controlled with an FDR. c, PCA plot of brain fog versus recovered PBMC samples. d, Volcano plot of DEGs (red circles) with a log2 fold change > 0.58 or < −0.58 (vertical dashed lines) and P < 0.05 (horizontal dashed line). DEGs with a log2 fold change < 0.58 or or > −0.58 and P < 0.05 are also displayed (blue circles). Data were analyzed using a Wald test with multiple comparisons controlled with an FDR. e,f, Top five upregulated and downregulated terms from brain fog versus recovered (e) and brain fog versus long COVID (f) cohorts. g–i, Normalized counts of PF4V1 (g), PF4 (h) and SELP (i) in brain fog versus recovered cohorts (n = 5 recovered, n = 5 with brain fog). j–l, Normalized counts of PER1 (j), NR1D2 (k) and RORA (l) in the cohort with brain fog versus the cohort with long COVID (n = 6 without brain fog (−), n = 5 with brain fog (+)). Data were analyzed using a Wald test with multiple comparisons controlled with an FDR. The box plots display the minimum and maximum values (whiskers), the median (solid line) and the IQR (upper and lower box) with significance set at P < 0.05. Statistical significance was assessed using DESeq2 with a Wald test and Benjamini–Hochberg correction.
