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Identification of robust mortality-associated neutrophil gene programs and cytokine responses using large-scale ARDS endotracheal aspirate scRNA-seq data

Whitley, O.; Delemarre, T.; Reyes, M.; Kajihara, K.; Little-Hooy, H.; Chen, C.; De Simone, M.; Xu, M.; Shivram, H.; Hackney, J.; Chang, D.; Ramamoorthi, N.; Gao, X.; Kim, E.; Zha, S.; Langelier, C. R.; Kapadia, S.; Rosenberger, C. M.; Shi, H.

2025-08-24 intensive care and critical care medicine
10.1101/2025.08.21.25333911 medRxiv
Show abstract

Myeloid dysregulation is involved in severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), but the mechanistic understanding is still incomplete. We analyzed endotracheal aspirate (ETA) scRNA-seq data from 40 intubated patients (both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19) in the COMET cohort, to uncover cell types and gene programs associated with ARDS mortality. In cell-type-agnostic analyses, we identified neutrophils as a critical cell type prognostic for ARDS mortality. Subsequent analyses uncovered a mortality-associated neutrophil subpopulation characterized by upregulation of IFN-{gamma} response and ferroptosis genes, and downregulation of TNF-[a] response genes. These findings were validated across independent COVID-19 clinical cohorts. Analyses of in vitro data further suggested that gene programs active in the mortality-associated neutrophil subpopulation could be attributable to specific cytokine responses. Finally, we confirmed that this mortality-associated neutrophil subpopulation could be induced in rodents via influenza A or SARS-CoV-2 infections, providing insights for modeling this neutrophil phenotype for therapeutic development.

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