Comparing biomarkers for COVID-19 disease with commonly associated preexisting conditions and complications

  1. Jesse Huang

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Abstract

Severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with certain preexisting health conditions and can cause respiratory failure along with other multi-organ injuries. However, the mechanism of these relationships is unclear, and prognostic biomarkers for the disease and its systemic complications are lacking. This study aims to examine the plasma protein profile of COVID-19 patients and evaluate overlapping protein modules with biomarkers of common comorbidities.

Blood samples were collected from COVID-19 cases (n=307) and negative controls (n=78) among patients with acute respiratory distress. Proteins were measured by proximity extension assay utilizing next-generation sequencing technology. Its associations to COVID-19 disease characteristics were compared to that of preexisting conditions and established biomarkers for myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and chronic kidney disease.

Several proteins were differentially expressed in COVID-19, including multiple pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IFN-γ, CXCL10, and CCL7/MCP-3. Elevated IL-6 was associated with increased severity, while baseline IL1RL1/ST2 levels were associated with a worse prognosis. Network analysis identified several protein modules associated with COVID-19 disease characteristics overlapping with processes of preexisting hypertension and impaired kidney function. BNP and NTpro-BNP, markers for MI and stroke, increased with disease progression and were positively associated with severity. MMP12 was similarly elevated and has been previously linked to smoking and inflammation in emphysema, along with increased cardiovascular disease risk.

In conclusion, this study provides an overview of the systemic effects of COVID-19 and candidate biomarkers for clinical assessment of disease progression and the risk of systemic complications.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.02.20205609: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.02.20205609v1 on medRxiv