Temporal analyses of immune responses in sepsis reveal asynchrony between clinical stage of illness and immune states.

Sepsis patients exhibit three distinct immune states over time, with a notable asynchrony between clinical stages and immune response trajectories.

• Why it matters: Understanding the timing and nature of immune responses in sepsis is crucial for developing targeted therapies, as current approaches often overlook this asynchrony.
• What they did: Longitudinal transcriptomic analyses of critically ill sepsis patients identified three immune states (STImS1-3) through pseudotime analysis, supported by gene co-expression, cytokine, and immunophenotypic profiling.
• The result: Findings reveal that immune states do not always align with clinical stages, highlighting the importance of tailoring interventions to the immune state rather than solely the clinical timeline, potentially improving treatment outcomes.