Exosomal microRNAs Drive Thrombosis in COVID-19

  1. Jessica Gambardella
  2. Celestino Sardu
  3. Marco Bruno Morelli
  4. Vincenzo Messina
  5. Vanessa Castellanos
  6. Raffaele Marfella
  7. Paolo Maggi
  8. Giuseppe Paolisso
  9. Xujun Wang
  10. Gaetano Santulli

Reviewed by

Read the full article See related articles

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Thrombotic and thromboembolic complications have been shown to play a critical role in the clinical outcome of COVID-19. Emerging evidence has shown that exosomal miRNAs are functionally involved in a number of physiologic and pathologic processes. However, neither exosomes nor miRNAs have been hitherto investigated in COVID-19. To test the hypothesis that exosomal miRNAs are a key determinant of thrombosis in COVID-19, we enrolled patients positive for COVID-19. Circulating exosomes were isolated from equal amounts of serum and levels of exosomal miRNAs were quantified. We divided our population in two groups based on the serum level of D-dimer on admission. Strikingly, we found that exosomal miR-424 was significantly upregulated whereas exosomal miR-103a, miR-145, and miR-885 were significantly downregulated in patients in the high D-dimer group compared to patients in the low D-Dimer group (p<0.0001).

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.16.20133256: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles and approved by the local Ethical Committee.
    Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations of our study include the relatively small population and the fact that we did not determine the exact source of exosomes; nevertheless, since endothelial dysfunction has been shown to be a prominent feature of COVID-19 and to contribute to the pro-thrombotic and pro-inflammatory state of the vasculature (2), we speculate that a main source could be represented by endothelial cells, which express these miRNAs in normal conditions (5).

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.16.20133256v1 on medRxiv