The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is caused by the severe 2 acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Among patients hospitalized 3
for COVID-19 males and those of older age emerged as having a higher risk for critical 4 COVID-19 1, 2 . Hypertension, highly prevalent in adults worldwide 3 , has been identified 5 as a major risk factor for COVID-19 severity 4, 5 . Hypertensive COVID-19 patients are 6 more likely to develop severe pneumonia or organ damage than non-hypertensive 7
patients. In addition, these patients exhibit exacerbated inflammatory responses and 8 have a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than non-hypertensive patients 4, 6 . 9 SARS-CoV-2 exploits the ACE2 receptor, expressed on epithelial cells in the 10 respiratory system, for cellular attachment and entry 7 . ACE2 is a membrane-bound 11 aminopeptidase and is part of the non-canonical arm of the renin-angiotensin-12 aldosterone system (RAAS), which regulates blood pressure homeostasis and 13 vascular repair responses. It has been speculated that antihypertensive treatment by 14 angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi) or angiotensin receptor blockers 15 (ARBs) might modulate ACE2 expression and thereby alter susceptibility for SARS-16
CoV-2 infection. In the classical RAAS pathway, angiotensin II binds to the 17 angiotensin-II-receptor-subtyp-1 (AT1R), which promotes vasoconstriction and pro-18 inflammation. ACE2, on the other hand, cleaves angiotensin II into angiotensin 1-7, 19 which mediates vasodilatatory and anti-inflammatory effects 8, 9 . 20 Data from animal studies demonstrated that ACEi and ARB can up-regulate ACE2 21 expression 10 . This raised intense discussions on a potential increase in availability of 22 SARS-CoV-2 receptors in ACEi or ARB treated patients 11, 12 , rendering them 23 potentially more susceptibility to viral infection and spread. To date there is no 24 evidence from observational studies that ACEi-or ARB-treatment could increase the 25 infectivity for SARS-CoV-2 5, 13 . 26
Only individuals diagnosed with severe to critical COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2-negative 1 controls were eligible for inclusion in this part of the study (Supplementary Table 3) . However, anti-hypertensive treatment did not alter ACE2 expression, neither in SARS-22
CoV-2-positive nor -negative patients. 23
We conclude that entry factor expression did not predispose ACEi or ARB treated 24 patients to SARS-CoV-2 infection. This finding is in accordance with observational 25 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020 . . https://doi.org/10.1101 /2020 studies, which did not reveal any effect of ACEi or ARB treatment on SARS-CoV-2 1 infection risk in individuals with hypertension or other CVDs 5 . 2 3
We next assessed potential molecular mechanisms that may be involved in the 5 delayed viral clearance of ARB-treated patients within the Pa-COVID-19 cohort 6 described above. Pathway enrichment analysis based on the top 100 genes that were is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020 . . https://doi.org/10.1101 /2020 setting using A549 cells, we studied the extrinsic and intrinsic transcriptional response 1 supposedly induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Cells were stimulated by either a highly 2 specific RIG-I ligand triggering prototypical antiviral signaling through IRF3 or by a 3 combination of IFNb and INFl inducing prototypical IFN signaling through ISGF3 4 ( Figure 3d ). Although the major pattern recognition receptor for SARS-CoV-2 remains 5 elusive, all potential antiviral pathways converged on the transcription factors 6 IRF3/IRF7 and NFkB 25 , eliciting a similar transcriptional response (Supplementary 7 Table 4 ). 8
By overlapping the specific intrinsic and extrinsic antiviral response gene sets identified 9
in the in vitro experiment with the differentially expressed genes in secretory and 10 ciliated cells of COVID-19 patients (for enrichment see Methods), we observed that 11 overall ACEi but not ARB treatment was associated with a strong cell intrinsic anti-viral is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . treated patients showed a strong bias towards genes controlled by NFkB, a hallmark 1 transcription factor for inflammatory conditions 26-28 . 2
Taken together, we observed a distinct difference in the balance between cell-intrinsic 3 and extrinsic antiviral responses of ARB vs. ACEi treatment of HT+/CVD± COVID-19 4 patients. The identified dampened intrinsic antiviral response in secretory and ciliated 5 cells of ARB-treated HT+/CVD± COVID-19 patients may have contributed to the above 6 described delay in SARS-CoV-2 clearance in those patients. 7 8
hypertensive treatment in COVID-19 patients 10
The above described differential gene expression by ACEi/ARB revealed a distinct 11 induction of inflammatory and chemoattractant genes. Hence, we inferred all possible 12 intercellular interactions of all cell types and states across the different conditions using 13
CellPhoneDB 29 (Figure 4) . Basal, secretory, ciliated, non-resident macrophages 14 In SARS-CoV-2 negative patients, interactions in ACEi+ and ARB+ were very similar 21 in number and type (Extended Data Figure 6a -b). In contrast, for COVID-19 patients, 22
ACEi treatment was concomitant with a reduction of interactions, while interactions in 23 ARB treatment remained almost unchanged compared to HT+/CVD± patients. 24
The cell specific interactions were then categorized as intra-vs. inter-compartment 25 interactions (immune:immune and epithelial:epithelial vs. immune:epithelial 26 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020 . . https://doi.org/10.1101 /2020 compartment interactions (Extended Data Figure 6c ). In general, regardless of SARS-1
CoV-2 infection status, epithelial cells exhibited more potential interactions with 2 themselves while immune cells had more inter-compartment interactions with epithelial 3 cells. When comparing interactions in SARS-CoV-2-negative and -positive patients, 4
we generally observed a loss of intra-compartment interactions for epithelial cells and 5 a gain in inter-compartment interactions with immune cells among all conditions. Both 6 inter-and intra-compartment interactions of immune cells tended to be increasen in 7 HT+/CVD± compared to HT-/CVD-COVID-19 patients (Extended Data Figure 6c , 8 Supplementary Table 5 ). Accordingly, intra-compartment interactions upon SARS-9
CoV-2 infection were exclusively statistically significantly increased in immune cell 10 types, but decreased in epithelial cells (Supplementary Table 5) . 11
Notably, this finding was mostly impacted by ARB-treated patients showing an overall 12 increase in immune cell interactions, while ACEi-treated patients were similar to HT-13 /CVD-COVID-19 patients (Extended Data Figure 6c ; Supplementary Table 5 ). In 14 particular chemokine/chemokine receptor interactions mediated by nrMa (Figure 4c ) 15 reflected the similarity between HT-/CVD-patients and ACEi-treated COVID-19 16 patients. HT+/CVD+ and ARB-treated COVID-19 patients were similar in their 17 interaction pattern, while in ACEi+ there was a reduced enrichment of interactions 18 between CCL3/CCL4 and CCR5, and between CCR5 and CCL7, respectively ( Figure  19 4c). In line with the pronounced chemokine/chemokine receptor interaction, the 20 expression of CCL2, CCL3, CCL4, CCL7, and CCL18 was upregulated in ARB+ 21 concomitant with the expression of their receptors, e.g., CCR1, CCR2, and CCR5, 22
suggesting a higher interactivity of nrMa under ARB compared to ACEi treatment 23 (Extended Data Figure 6d) . 24 25 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020 . . https://doi.org/10.1101 /2020 
To elucidate the deleterious contribution of hypertension on COVID-19, we evaluated 3 the transcriptional profile of the key immune cell types orchestrating the antiviral 4 response, namely T-cells, macrophages, and neutrophils. We and others showed that 5 macrophages, in particular nrMa, are key mediators of hyperinflammation in severe 6 COVID-19. High expression of genes coding for immune cell-recruiting chemokines, 7 such as CCL2, CCL3 and CCL4, and inflammatory cytokines including 8 IL1B and IL8, are hallmarks of nrMa in 17 . Upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, 9 HT+/CVD± patients showed a significantly increased expression of these inflammatory 10 mediators not only in macrophages but also in Neu compared to HT-/CVD-patients 11 Anti-hypertensive treatment by ACEi apparently decreased hypertension-related 16 hyperinflammation of COVID-19, while ARB was less effective in this regard ( Figure  17 5a-c, Extended Data Figure 7b ). In all macrophage subtypes, CCL3 and CCL4 18 expression among others was elevated in HT+/CVD±/ARB+ compared to HT+/ 19 CVD±/ACEi+. In line, Neu showed a pro-inflammatory characteristic (IL8, CXCL2) and 20 infiltrative potential (ITGAM, ICAM1) in ARB+ and to a much lesser extent in ACEi+, 21 when compared to HT-/CVD-patients ( Figure 5c ). is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10. 1101 /2020 and HT+/ CVD±/ARB+) showed a similar chemokine fingerprint as reflected by an 1 increased expression of e.g. CCL3 and CCL4 (Figure 5a right panel, Figure 5c ). 2
In agreement with the previously observed aggravated cytotoxic capacity of CTLs in 3 critical COVID-19 patients 16 , hypertensive patients treated with ARB or ACEi 4 expressed cytotoxic mediators like PRF1 or GZMK to a larger extend than HT-/CVD-5 patients upon infection with SARS-CoV-2 ( Figure 5d ). As expected, in the absence of 6 SARS-CoV-2 infection, CTLs were not activated and no apparent difference between 7 HT+/CVD±/ACEi+ or HT+/CVD±/ARB+ and HT-/CVD-patients was observed ( Figure  8 5d). 9
In contrast, in NKT cells cytotoxic markers (e.g. KLRD1, GZMB) in addition to 10 monocyte-attractants (e.g. CCL3, CCL4) were already significantly elevated in SARS-11
CoV-2 negative hypertensive patients (Extended Data Figure 7a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint critical COVID-19 patients (n= 23 severe vs. 9 critical, cut-off: average fold change 1 ≥0.25, and p-value≤0.05, Figure 5e ). Using a logistic regression model considering 2 age, gender, days post onset of symptoms and study center as potential confounding 3 factors we confirmed a significant relationship between increased expression of CCL4 4 derived from either nrMa (adj.OR/95% CI=1.04/1.00-1.07, p-value=0.027) or Neu 5 (adj.OR/95% CI=1.06/1.00-1.12, p-value=0.044) and CCL3 expressed by Neu 6 (adj.OR/95% CI=1.13/1.01-1.27, p-value=0.02) and an increased risk for critical 7 COVID-19. Notably, expression of CCR1, the receptor bound by CCL3 and CCL4, 8 increased in nrMa and Neu with COVID-19 severity supporting the potential of CCR1 9 as a therapeutic target 16 (Extended Data Figure 7d ). Antihypertensive treatment 10 increased CCL3 and CCL4 expression in immune cells of SARS-CoV-2 negative 11 patients, but in COVID-19 only ARB-treatment significantly elevated CCL3/CCL4 12 expression compared to HT-/CVD-COVID-19 ( Figure 5f ). 13
In summary, we could show that treatment with ACEi resulted in a more favorable This study identified potential novel molecular mechanisms underlying the finding from 21 observational studies that COVID-19 patients with hypertension or coronary artery 22 disease revealed higher morbidity and mortality rates 4, 30, 31 . As first line anti-23
hypertensive medication includes modulators of RAAS interfering with the pathway 24 employed by SARS-CoV-2 for cellular entry it has been debated whether ACEi or ARB 25 treatment alters SARS-CoV-2 infectivity and severity of COVID-19. Our data suggest 26 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10. 1101 /2020 that the hypertension-associated additional risk for critical disease progression can be 1 reduced by ARB treatment and is almost abolished by ACEi treatment. This is 2 corroborated by previous reports observing higher mortality rates in hypertensive 3 COVID-19 patients in the absence of ACEi/ARB treatment 32 . 4
Several clinical studies are now available comparing SARS-CoV-2 infectivity rates 5 among patients with and without ACEi/ARB treatment 13, 33 . Their findings support the 6 notion that testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 is not associated with treatment by 7
ACEi/ARB 13, 34 . In line, we observe no difference in ACE2 expression and initial viral 8 concentration between patient groups. Also, induction of ACE2 expression after SARS-9
CoV-2-infection was not altered by ACEi/ARB treatment. However, viral clearance was 10 delayed by ARB treatment. While reduced viral clearance can be a result of defects in 11 immunity for example of an impaired T cell activity, as it has already been reported for 12 cardiovascular diseases 35 , our data suggest that the altered anti-viral-response of 13 is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . Interestingly, a recent study showed enhanced plasma ACE2-activity along with a 1 significant increase in Ang(1-7) concentrations in ACEi treated COVID-19 patients 2 compared to COVID-19 patients under ARB therapy, suggesting a higher anti-3 inflammatory capacity in ACEi compared to ARB treated COVID-19 36 . 4
The present study demonstrated an immune activation in hypertensive patients that is 5 largely augmented under COVID-19 and may provide a novel explanation for the 6 adverse course of the disease in these patients related to a hyperinflammatory 7 response. Our data are in line with the general guideline recommendations 8 discouraging discontinuation of ACEi or ARB treatment. On the contrary, our results 9 may suggest that ACEi could be the more beneficial antihypertensive treatment during 10 COVID-19. A randomized control trial is required to assess the clinical impact of ACEi 11
vs. ARB treatment in COVID-19 patients and several trials are under way. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. .
Huang is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. .
Dinh, Q.N., Drummond, G.R., Sobey, C.G. & Chrissobolis, S. Roles of 1 inflammation, oxidative stress, and vascular dysfunction in hypertension. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. .
Nawijn 
Liu, T., Zhang, L., Joo, D. & Sun, S.C. NF-kappaB signaling in inflammation. 9
Signal Transduct Target Ther 2, e17023 17021-17029 (2017). is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
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Patients were enrolled between March 6 th and June 7 th 2020 in either the prospective 4 observational cohort study Pa-COVID-19 21 at Charité -Universitätsmedizin Berlin or 5 the SC2-study at the University Hospital Leipzig. Written informed consent was given 6 by all patients or their legal representatives. The study was approved by the respective 7
Institutional Review boards of the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin (EA2/066/20) or 8 the University Hospital Leipzig (123/20-ek) and conducted in accordance with the 9
Declaration of Helsinki. 10
Between March-May 2020, 162 COVID-19-positive patients were recruited at Charité 13 -Universitätsmedizin Berlin in the Pa-COVID-19 study. In the here presented study, 14
we excluded those patients who had their positive SARS-CoV-2 test exclusively 15 outside the Charité (n=12) and those with missing information on ACEi/ARB treatment 16 (n=6). For the remaining 144 COVID-19 patients, we assessed differences in COVID-17 19 severity related to pre-existing cardiovascular diseases (CVD+), such as 18 hypertension (HT+/CVD-) or HT and an additional cardiovascular disease (coronary 19 artery diseaseand/or heart failure, HT+/CVD+) in the different treatment groups 20 (ACEi+, ARB+, ACEi-/ARB-) compared to patients without HT-/CVD-. HT is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. .
We collected nasopharyngeal swabs for single-cell RNA transcriptome analyses 1 (scRNA-seq) of 32 confirmed COVID-19 patients (23 males and nine females; median 2 age: 67; range: 32-91 years of age) and 16 controls without any COVID-19 related 3 symptoms (nine males, seven females; median age: 53; range: 24-79). Relevant 4 patient characteristics are given in Supplementary Table 3 . 5
Of the COVID-19 patients, 23 patients were classified as having severe, and nine as 6 having critical disease according to the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines 38 . 7
Hospital mortality of these patients was 1/33 (3.0%). 8
Baseline CVD were prevalent in 25 of the COVID-19 patients. They either suffered 9 from HT only (n=16, 64%), CVD with HT (n=7, 28%), or CVD with heart failure and HT 10 (n=2, 8%). Patients with HT only were classified as HT+, while all patients suffering 11 from HT and CVD (and possibly additionally heart failure) were classified as 12 HT+/CVD+. Concomitant treatment of HT+/CVD± included treatment with either ACEi 13 (n=10) or ARB (n=15). Seven of the COVID-19 patients had no known CVD (21.2%). 14 Note that patient BIH-SCV2-14 was included in all analysis regarding ACEi/ARB 15 treatment but not in the CVD analysis (this patient suffered from HT and heart failure). 16
Of the symptom-free SARS-CoV-2-negative patients, six had HT only (37.5%), and 17 four had additional CVD (25%). Six of these patients received ACEi (37.5%) and four 18
were treated with ARB (25%). The remaining six patients had no known CVD and 19 therefore, were neither treated with ACEi nor ARB (37.5%). 20 21
Sample procurement, single-cell isolation, library preparation, and subsequent data 24 analysis was performed as described previously 16 . Briefly, freshly taken 25 nasopharyngeal swabs from donors were directly transferred into 500 μL cold 26 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint DMEM/F12 medium (Gibco, 11039) and 500 μL of 13mM DTT (AppliChem, A2948) 1 were added to each sample. Cells were released by gently pipetting the solution onto 2 the swab, followed by dipping the swab 20 times into the medium. Subsequently, the 3 samples were incubated on a thermomixer at 37°C, 500 rpm for 10 minutes, followed 4 by centrifugation at 350xG at 4°C for 5 minutes. While carefully removing the 5 supernatant, the pellet was visually examined for any traces of blood. If it contained 6 red blood cells (RBC), the pellet was resuspended in 500 μL 1x PBS (Sigma-Aldrich, 7 D8537) and 1 mL of RBC Lysis Buffer (Roche, 11814389001), incubated at 25°C for 8 10 minutes, and subsequently centrifuged at 350xG at 4°C for 5 minutes. A single cell 9 suspension was achieved by resuspending the cell pellet in 500 μL Accutase (Thermo 10
Fisher, 00-4555-56), followed by incubation at room temperature for 10 minutes with 11 gently mixing the cells after 5 minutes by pipetting. Subsequently, 500 μL DMEM/F12 12 supplemented with 10% FBS was added to the cells. After centrifugation at 350xG at 13 4°C for 5 minutes and removal of the supernatant, the cell pellet was resuspended in 14 100-500 μL 1x PBS (depending on the size of the cell pellet). Cell debris was removed 15 by using a 35 μm cell strainer (Falcon, 352235) before cell counting was performed 16 using a disposable Neubauer chamber (NanoEnTek, DHC-N01). The cell suspension 17 was loaded into the 10x Chromium Controller using the 10x Genomics Single Cell 3' 18 is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint S4: up to 20 samples) and sequenced on the NovaSeq 6000 Sequencing System 1 (Illumina, paired-end, single-indexing). 2
All samples were processed under biosafety S3 within one hour after procurement. 3
Note that samples not immediately used for library preparation were resuspended in 4 cryopreservation medium [20% FBS (Gibco, 10500), 10% DMSO (Sigma-Aldrich, 5 D8418), 70% DMEM/F12] and stored at -80°C. Frozen cells were thawed quickly at 6 37°C, pelleted at 350xG at 4°C for 5 minutes, and proceeded with normal processing. 7
Single-cell datasets were processed using cellranger 3.0.1. All transcripts were aligned 8 to a customized human hg19 reference genome (10x genomics, version 3.1.0) plus 9 the SARS-CoV-2 genome (Refseq-ID: NC_045512) added as an additional 10 chromosome. Following alignment, ambient RNA was removed using SoupX 39 using 11 MUC1, MUC5AC, and MUC5B as marker genes. Where ambient RNA levels seemed 12 plausible (5-15%), filtered expression matrices were used for downstream analyses. 13
Further processing was performed using Seurat 3.1.4. Genes were retained if they 14
were present in at least three cells in a sample. Cells with more than or equal to 15% 15 mitochondrial reads or less than 200 genes expressed were removed from the 16 analysis. For the number of UMIs, an upper cutoff was chosen manually per sample 17 based on outliers in a UMI counts vs. gene counts plot and was typically in the range 18 of 75,000 to 150,000. After normalizing to 10,000 reads per cell, samples were 19 integrated using stepwise CCA on smaller subsets using 90 components and 2,000 20 variable genes identified by SelectIntegrationFeatures. On the integrated dataset, PCA 21 was run using 90 principal components, followed by UMAP and clustering with a 22 resolution of 2.1, both using all components. NKT, CTL, and p-NKT cells were 23 subsetted for further analysis. Scaling, dimensional reduction by PCA and the UMAP 24 was calculated separately for this subset. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10. 1101 /2020 Cell types were then refined manually by assessing the expression of known cell type 1 markers. Cell types from epithelial 22, 40, 41 and immune 42 cell populations were identified 2 according to the expression levels of different marker genes (Extended Data Figure  3 1c). The "viral responsive" cell states of ciliated and squamous epithelial cells 4 (Extended Data Figure 1b) were identified by gene set enrichment analysis using 5 clusterProfiler version 3.12.0 and the output of "FindClusters()" function from Seurat 6 as input (https://yulab-smu.github.io/clusterProfiler-book/index.html) 43 . 7
For cell-cell interactions, which are based on the expression of known ligand-receptor 8 pairs in different identified cell types, CellPhoneDB 21 version 2.1.2 was used 9
(https://github.com/Teichlab/cellphonedb). circlize 0.4.10 was used to generate the 10 circos plots to display the cell-cell interactions 44 . 11
Shifts of interactions across the different conditions were tested for significance using 12 a logistic regression based on a binomial distribution (Supplementary Table 5) . is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint genome target for both test systems) was calculated taking into account different 1 predilutions, extraction volumes, and RT-PCR reaction volumes. The maximal value in each bin was considered. In case a patient had a negative test 8 for SARS-CoV-2 between two positive measurements, the negative result was 9 disregarded. Patients for which only one negative test result was available or had 10 missing confounder information were excluded from the analysis. A linear repeated 11 measurement mixed model assuming a heterogeneous first-order autoregressive 12 structure of the covariance matrix was applied considering ACEi or ARB treatment in 
To compare the rate of viral clearance between patient groups, we performed a linear 22
fit to viral load measurements during the first 30 days post symptom onset. Zero 23 measurements, and patients with fewer than four non-zero measurements within this 24 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint timeframe, were excluded from this analysis. Student's t-tests were used to identify 1 statistically significant differences in slope between groups. 2
A549 cells were electrotransfected with 400bp long in vitro transcribed dsRNA 48 and 5 lysed at 2, 4, 6, 8, 16 and 24h after transfection, or mock electrotransfected and lysed 6 at 2 and 24h. Alternatively, A549 cells were treated with a mix of 100 IU/ml interferon 7 beta (8499-IF-010/CF, R&D Systems, Minneapolis, MN, USA) and 2.5 ng/ml interferon 8 lamba-1 (300-02L-100, Peprotech, Hamburg, Germany) for 2, 8 or 24h and then lysed. 9
Total RNA was extracted from cell lysates using the NucleoSpin RNA Plus kit 10 (Macherey Nagel, Düren, Germany) and the RNA was subjected to microarray 11 analyses using the Illumina Human HT-12 Expression Beadchip platform at the 12 genomic and proteomics core facility at DKFZ. Expression data was quantile 13 normalized, genes with no significant expression at any condition / time point were 14 excluded and gene regulation at different treatment time points vs. the 0h control was 15 determined using the limma package (Bioconductor). Data were then filtered according 16 to the following criteria to define gene sets. 17
The gene set "Cell-intrinsic antiviral (RIG-I-like receptor, RLR) signaling" comprises 18 genes that were exclusively or predominantly upregulated upon dsRNA transfection 19 (RLR stimulation) but not upon IFN treatment; while for the sake of specificity a very 20 specific RIG-I stimulation was applied, the transcriptional response likely is similar for 21 any antiviral stimulus (e.g. through MDA5, STING, TLRs) that activates the IRF3 22 is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint (maxLog2FC-mock) > 0.5*(maxLog2FC-RNA -maxLog2FC-IFN) (11 genes). This 1 procedure yielded a list of 238 genes, comprising expected genes such as the IRF3-2 dependent type I and III IFN genes themselves (IFNB1, IFNL1,2,3) and classical NFkB 3 targets such as TNFAIP3 (previously A20) and the IkB genes NFKBIA, NFKBIB, 4
The gene set "Extrinsic / paracrine type I / III IFN signaling" comprises genes that were 6 strongly upregulated by extrinsic IFN beta / IFN lambda treatment while less so by cell-7 intrinsic RLR induction. Note that the majority of IFN-induced genes were upregulated 8 by RLR signaling as well, putatively due to the above noted IFN production upon RLR 9 stimulation. We enriched this gene set for genes with a bias towards IFN and against 10 RLR signaling by applying the below described filters. Notably, a few genes, such as 11 LY6E, described to possess antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 49 , were induced 12 only upon IFN treatment but not at all by RLR signaling. In general, we found less 13 profound gene induction in IFN-treated than in dsRNA transfected conditions, likely 14 due to the moderate dose of IFN used; we therefore used less stringent cut-offs for this 15 gene set: maxLog2FC-IFN > 0.8 and (maxLog2FC-IFN -maxLog2FC-RNA) > -0.5. 16
The latter filter removed roughly 50% of the genes, selecting for those with a relative 17 bias of IFN-treatment over dsRNA transfection. Filtering yielded 95 genes, including 18 many of the well-known ISGF3-driven IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs), including the MX- is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint test adjusted for days post symptoms onset (dps). Overlap statistics were calculated 1 as hypergeometric tail probabilities. Differences in CPM were calculated using an 2 ANOVA followed by Tukey's honest significance of differences test after assessing 3 homoskedasticity using Bartlett's test. When multiple tests were performed, p-values 4 were adjusted using the Benjamini-Hochberg method. Total CPM values were 5 extracted from the filtered and raw matrices output by CellRanger. Motif enrichment p-6 values were calculated using HOMER 4.10.0 50 . To analyze the potential contribution 7 of HT/CVD and its treatment on COVID-19 severity in the PaCOVID-19 cohort we 8 conducted chi-square tests with Yates' correction and logistic regression models 9 adjusted for gender, BMI smoking and insulin treatment. Age showed collinearity with 10
ACEi or ARB treatment. Therefore, age was omitted as a confounder in models where 11
ACEi or ARB treatment was used as an independent variable. Viral clearance was 12 assessed based on similarly adjusted linear regression models as described above. 13
Logistic regression models assessing gene expression changes observed in the 14 scRNA-seq cohort were adjusted for age, gender, days post onset of symptoms and 15 study center. 16
Due to potential risk of de-identification of pseudonymized RNA sequencing data the 19 raw data will be available under controlled access in the EGA repository, [will be added 20 is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
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No custom code was generated/ used during the current study. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. We thank all patients of the Pa-COVID-19 cohort study for kindly donating 23 nasopharyngeal samples and clinical data. We also thank Alexander Krannich and 24
Julia Kazmierski, Charité -Universitätsmedizin Berlin, for help in sample 25 procurement/annotation and for supporting sample processing, respectively. We thank 26 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
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The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020 . . https://doi.org/10.1101 /2020 Competing Interest Statement 1 MSA has received personal fees from Servier outside the submitted work. All other 2 authors not declare any competing interest. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.22.20199471 doi: medRxiv preprint 
Pct. Exp. MMP9  ITGB2  ITGAM  ICAM1  TLR2  CCR1  CXCR1  CXCR2  CXCR4  IFNGR1  TNFRSF1B  CCL2  CCL3  CCL4  CXCL2  IL1B  IL8 is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B + CVD treatment A C E i + H T -/ C V D - A R B + A C E i + H T - / C V D - A R B +
T P 6 3 B C A M K R T 5 S C G B 1 A 1 S C G B 3 A 1 X B P 1 M U C 5 A C V M O 1 P IG R F O X N 4 C C N O M Y C L C D C 2 0 B F O X Y J E F H C 1 C C D C 1 5 3 C C D C 1 1 3 F O X I1 C F T R A S C L 3 F O XC D 3 0 0 E A R E G E R E G IR F 4 K L F 4 C D 1 4 C C L 3 C C L 2 IL 1 B F C N 1 V C A N F C G R 3 A C X C L 1 1 C X C L 9 C X C L 1 0 IF IT 3 IF IT 1 M R C 1 M S R 1 M A R C O C 1 Q A C 1 Q C A P O E C D 6 8 F A B P 5 F C E R 1 A C D 7 4 H L A − D Q B 1 H L A − D R A T N F R S F 1 8 F O X P 3 C T L A 4 H IS T 1 H 4 C H M G B 2 S T M N 1 C D 4 N C A M 1 K L R B 1 G N L Y N K G 7 P R F 1 G Z M A C D 8 B C D 8 A C D 3 G C D 3 E C X C R 6 C D 2 7 C D 1 9 M S 4 A 1 C D 7 9 A T C F 4 IR F 2 IR F 8 IR F 7 T L R 7 L Y N F C G R 3 B IT G A X M S 4 A 2 H P G D L T C 4 S C P A 3 K IT NKT b
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. Pct. Exp. IL1B   IL6   IL8   TNF   MMP9  ITGB2  ITGAM  ICAM1  TLR2  CCR1  CXCR1  CXCR2  CXCR4  IFNGR1  TNFRSF1B  CCL2  CCL3  CCL4  CXCL2  IL1B  IL8 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a perpetuity.
H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B +CCL4
H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B + H T -/ C V D - A C E i + A R B
is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in (which was not certified by peer review) preprint
The copyright holder for this this version posted September 23, 2020. . https://doi.org/10. 1101 /2020 