Skip to main content
. 2021 Jun 2;120(14):2838–2847. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2021.05.025

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Lymphocytes are less stiff in peripheral blood of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Typical scatter plot of lymphocyte deformation versus cell size (cross-sectional area) of a healthy blood donor with no known viral infection (A) compared with a patient 4 months after undergoing COVID-19 (B) and a patient with COVID-19 in an intensive care unit (C) is given. (D) Kernel density estimate plots demonstrating the differences in cell size and deformation among the three donors (A–C). (E) Representative images of cells in the clusters marked by corresponding numbers in the scatter plots. (F) No significant differences in lymphocyte cell size were found between healthy blood donors (gray, n = 24), recovered patients approximately 5 months after undergoing COVID-19 (green, n = 14), and patients hospitalized with COVID-19 (yellow, n = 17). (G) Lymphocytes exhibit significantly increased deformation in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. (H) Young’s modulus of lymphocytes is significantly lower in COVID-19 patients compared with the healthy or recovered donors. Statistical comparisons were done using Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post hoc test; ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01, ∗∗∗p < 0.001.