Figure 3

SARS-CoV-2 infection alters cytokine responses differentially in the plasma and nasal cavity over time. Nasal swabs or plasma samples were collected at various times-post testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and a baseline sample for nasal and plasma pre-infection was used for normalization. Cytokines were assessed by multiplex Luminex assay. (A, B) Heat map of the median cytokine fold changes response to each person’s baseline value to account for human variation for nasal swabs (A) or plasma samples (B). Convalescent stage was split into early (days 21–62) and late (> 62 days) post-infection to study the longitudinal impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on mucosal cytokine responses (A). Ingenuity pathway analyses using predetermined signaling pathways on cytokines that were up or downregulated were assessed for both the nasal and plasma (A, B). (C) Fold change from baseline in acute, early, or late convalescent for cytokines FGF, VEGF, IL1RA, and IL-8 from nasal swabs. (D) Fold change from baseline in acute or convalescent from plasma for TNFα, CCL2, IL1RA, and IL-8. Heat maps and subsequent statistical analyses were conducted in GraphPad Prism version 9. Statistical analyses include a One-way ANOVA with Tukey’s Multiple Comparisons test (D). * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001. Plasma, n = 96 for baseline, acute and convalescent; nasal swabs, n = 28 (baseline), n = 12 (acute), and n = 21 (total early + late convalescent). Note, not all individuals had cytokine levels detected in the nasal cavity at baseline or post-infection, which were excluded from this analysis.