Abstract
Viral infections can give rise to a systemic decrease in the total number of lymphocytes in the blood, referred to as lymphopenia. Lymphopenia may affect the host adaptive immune responses and impact the clinical course of acute viral infections. Detailed knowledge on how viruses induce lymphopenia would provide valuable information into the pathogenesis of viral infections and potential therapeutic targeting. In this review, the current progress of viruses-induced lymphopenia is summarized and the potential mechanisms and factors involved are discussed.
Highlights
Lymphocytes are important elements of the immune system
Most viruses lead to relative lymphocytosis, while only a few viruses causing severe disease could result in lymphopenia, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) [12], ebola virus (EBOV) [13] and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) [14]
The underlying factors and molecular mechanisms of lymphopenia caused by most DNA viruses have rarely been reported which needs to be addressed in the future
Summary
Lymphocytes are important elements of the immune system. They are categorized into T lymphocytes (T cells), B lymphocytes (B cells) and natural killer (NK) cells based on their migration, surface makers and biological functions [1]. It is diagnosed when a total lymphocyte number is lower than normal for a particular age group (for instance, less than 1000 cells/μL in older children and adults) [2,3,4]. Such obvious reduction in blood lymphocytes count occurs due to viral infections [5], chemical and physical lympho-depleting agents [6], autoimmune-related systemic diseases [7], genetic factors [8], cancers [9], sepsis [10] and other severe injuries [11]. The current progress of the lymphopenia induced by viral infections with emphasis on RNA viruses is summarized and the mechanism and factors involved during various virus infection-mediated lymphopenia are discussed
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