Background

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 was first reported in Wuhan, December 2019, and continuously poses a serious threat to public health, highlighting the urgent need of identifying biomarkers for disease severity and progression.

Objective

We sought to identify biomarkers for disease severity and progression of COVID-19.

Methods

Forty-eight cytokines in the plasma samples from 50 COVID-19 cases including 11 critically ill, 25 severe, and 14 moderate patients were measured and analyzed in combination with clinical data.

Results

Levels of 14 cytokines were found to be significantly elevated in COVID-19 cases and showed different expression profiles in patients with different disease severity. Moreover, expression levels of IFN-γ–induced protein 10, monocyte chemotactic protein-3, hepatocyte growth factor, monokine-induced gamma IFN, and macrophage inflammatory protein 1 alpha, which were shown to be highly associated with disease severity during disease progression, were remarkably higher in critically ill patients, followed by severe and then the moderate patients. Serial detection of the 5 cytokines in 16 cases showed that continuously high levels were associated with deteriorated progression of disease and fatal outcome. Furthermore, IFN-γ–induced protein 10 and monocyte chemotactic protein-3 were excellent predictors for the progression of COVID-19, and the combination of the 2 cytokines showed the biggest area under the curve of the receiver-operating characteristics calculations with a value of 0.99.

Conclusions

In this study, we report biomarkers that are highly associated with disease severity and progression of COVID-19. These findings add to our understanding of the immunopathologic mechanisms of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection, and provide potential therapeutic targets and strategies.

中文翻译：

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血浆 IP-10 和 MCP-3 水平与疾病严重程度高度相关，并可预测 COVID-19 的进展。

 背景

2019 年 12 月，由严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2 型引起的 2019 冠状病毒病 (COVID-19) 首次在武汉报道，该疾病持续对公众健康构成严重威胁，凸显了迫切需要确定疾病严重程度和病情的生物标志物。进展。

 客观的

我们试图确定 COVID-19 疾病严重程度和进展的生物标志物。

 方法

对50例COVID-19病例（其中重症11例、重症25例、中度14例）的血浆样本中48种细胞因子进行了测定，并结合临床数据进行分析。

 结果

研究发现，14 种细胞因子的水平在 COVID-19 病例中显着升高，并且在不同疾病严重程度的患者中表现出不同的表达谱。此外，IFN-γ诱导蛋白10、单核细胞趋化蛋白3、肝细胞生长因子、单核因子诱导的γ IFN和巨噬细胞炎症蛋白1 α的表达水平被证明与疾病进展过程中的疾病严重程度高度相关。重症患者的发病率明显较高，其次是重症患者，最后是中度患者。对 16 例病例中 5 种细胞因子的连续检测表明，持续高水平与疾病进展恶化和致命结果相关。此外，IFN-γ诱导蛋白 10 和单核细胞趋化蛋白 3 是 COVID-19 进展的极好预测因子，两种细胞因子的组合在接受者操作特征计算中显示出最大的曲线下面积，值为0.99。

 结论

在这项研究中，我们报告了与 COVID-19 疾病严重程度和进展高度相关的生物标志物。这些发现增加了我们对严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2感染免疫病理机制的理解，并提供了潜在的治疗靶点和策略。