Immune biomarkers associated with COVID-19 disease severity in an urban, hospitalized population

Allison B Chambliss; Mayada Aljehani; Brian Tran; Xingyao Chen; Elizabeth Elton; Carolina Garri; Nolan Ung; Naim Matasci; Mitchell E Gross

doi:10.1016/j.plabm.2023.e00323

Immune biomarkers associated with COVID-19 disease severity in an urban, hospitalized population

Pract Lab Med. 2023 Jul 3:36:e00323. doi: 10.1016/j.plabm.2023.e00323. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Authors

Allison B Chambliss¹, Mayada Aljehani², Brian Tran², Xingyao Chen², Elizabeth Elton², Carolina Garri², Nolan Ung², Naim Matasci², Mitchell E Gross^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
² Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Department of Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Abstract

Objectives: We sought to identify immune biomarkers associated with severe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in patients admitted to a large urban hospital during the early phase of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Design: The study population consisted of SARS-CoV-2 positive subjects admitted for COVID-19 (n = 58) or controls (n = 14) at the Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center between April 2020 through December 2020. Immunologic markers including chemokine/cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IP-10, MCP-1, TNF-α) and serologic markers against SARS-CoV-2 antigens (including spike subunits S1 and S2, receptor binding domain, and nucleocapsid) were assessed in serum collected on the day of admission using bead-based multiplex immunoassay panels.

Results: We observed that body mass index (BMI) and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were significantly elevated in patients with the highest COVID-19 disease severity. IP-10 was significantly elevated in COVID-19 patients and was associated with increased SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Interactions among all available variables on COVID-19 disease severity were explored using a linear support vector machine model which supported the importance of BMI and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.

Conclusions: Our results confirm the known adverse association of BMI on COVID-19 severity and suggest that IP-10 and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies could be useful to identify patients most likely to experience the most severe forms of the disease.

Keywords: Antibodies; COVID-19; Chemokines; Cytokines; Immunology; SARS-CoV-2.

Abstract

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