Wentao Chen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Associate at Evotec

Eosinophils are key effector cells mediating airway inflammation and exacerbation in patients with severe eosinophilic asthma. They are present in increased numbers and activation states in the airway mucosa and lumen. Interleukin-5 (IL-5) is the key eosinophil growth factor that is thought to play a role in eosinophil priming and activation. Howev...

Background: A significant portion of COVID-19 sufferers have asthma. The impacts of asthma on COVID-19 progression are still unclear but a modifying effect is plausible as respiratory viruses are acknowledged to be an important trigger for asthma exacerbations and a different, potentially type-2 biased, immune response might occur. In this study, w...

Background Direct evaluation of vascular inflammation in patients with COVID-19 would facilitate more efficient trials of new treatments and identify patients at risk of long-term complications who might respond to treatment. We aimed to develop a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted image analysis platform that quantifies cytokine-driven va...

Type 2 immunity mediates the immune responses against parasites and allergic stimuli. Evidence from studies of cell lines and animals implies that neuromedin U (NmU) acts as a pro-inflammatory mediator of type 2 inflammation. However, the role of NmU in human type 2 immunity remains unclear. Here we investigated the expression of NmU in human blood...

Background A significant portion of COVID-19 sufferers have asthma. The impacts of asthma on COVID-19 progression are still unclear but a modifying effect is plausible as respiratory viruses are acknowledged to be an important trigger for asthma exacerbations and a different, potentially type-2 biased, immune response might occur. In this study, we...

Prior studies have demonstrated that immunologic dysfunction underpins severe illness in COVID-19 patients, but have lacked an in-depth analysis of the immunologic drivers of death in the most critically ill patients. We performed immunophenotyping of viral antigen-specific and unconventional T cell responses, neutralizing antibodies, and serum pro...

Human type 2 cytotoxic T (Tc2) cells are enriched in severe eosinophilic asthma and can contribute to airway eosinophilia. PGD2 and its receptor PGD2 receptor 2 (DP2) play important roles in Tc2 cell activation, including migration, cytokine production, and survival. In this study, we revealed novel, to our knowledge, functions of the PGD2/DP2 axis...

Treatment of severe COVID-19 is currently limited by clinical heterogeneity and incomplete understanding of potentially druggable immune mediators of disease. To advance this, we present a comprehensive multi-omic blood atlas in patients with varying COVID-19 severity and compare with influenza, sepsis and healthy volunteers. We identify immune sig...

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Human type-2 CD8+ T cells are a cell population with potentially important roles in allergic disease. We investigated this in the context of severe asthma with persistent airway eosinophilia—a phenotype associated with high exacerbation risk and responsiveness to type-2 cytokine-targeted therapies. In two independent cohorts we show that, in contra...

Cohesin organizes DNA into chromatids, regulates enhancer-promoter interactions, and confers sister chromatid cohesion. Its association with chromosomes is regulated by hook-shaped HEAT repeat proteins that bind Scc1, namely Scc3, Pds5, and Scc2. Unlike Pds5, Scc2 is not a stable cohesin constituent but, as shown here, transiently replaces Pds5. Sc...

The functions and in vivo roles of type-2 CD8 + T cells in humans have not been well defined and this cell type has been largely overlooked in models of disease. We investigated this in the context of severe asthma with persistent airway eosinophilia-a phenotype associated with high exacerbation risk and responsiveness to type-2 cytokine-targeted t...

In addition to sharing with condensin an ability to organize DNA into chromatids, cohesin regulates enhancer-promoter interactions and confers sister chromatid cohesion. Association with chromosomes is regulated by hook-shaped HEAT repeat proteins that Associate With its Kleisin (Scc1) subunit (HAWKs), namely Scc3, Pds5, and Scc2. Unlike Pds5, Scc2...