Circulating Ubiquitous RNA, A Highly Predictive and Prognostic Biomarker in Hospitalized Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Patients.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Approximately 15-30% of hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients develop acute respiratory distress syndrome, systemic tissue injury, and/or multi-organ failure leading to death in around 45% of cases. There is a clear need for biomarkers that quantify tissue injury, predict clinical outcomes, and guide the clinical management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

METHODS:

We herein report the quantification by droplet-based digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNAemia and the plasmatic release of a ubiquitous human intracellular marker, the ribonuclease P (RNase P) in order to evaluate tissue injury and cell lysis in the plasma of 139 COVID-19 hospitalized patients at admission.

RESULTS:

We confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 RNAemia was associated with clinical severity of COVID-19 patients. In addition, we showed that plasmatic RNase P RNAemia at admission was also highly correlated with disease severity (P < .001) and invasive mechanical ventilation status (P < .001) but not with pulmonary severity. Altogether, these results indicate a consequent cell lysis process in severe and critical patients but not systematically due to lung cell death. Finally, the plasmatic RNase P RNA value was also significantly associated with overall survival.

CONCLUSIONS:

Viral and ubiquitous blood biomarkers monitored by ddPCR could be useful for the clinical monitoring and the management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Moreover, these results could pave the way for new and more personalized circulating biomarkers in COVID-19, and more generally in infectious diseases, specific from each patient organ injury profile.

• Authors: Thomas Bruneau, Maxime Wack, Geoffroy Poulet, Nicolas Robillard, Aurélien Philippe, Pierre Laurent Puig, Laurent Bélec, Jérôme Hadjadj, Wenjin Xiao, Julia Linnea Kallberg, Solen Kernéis, Jean Luc Diehl, Benjamin Terrier, David M Smadja, Valerie Taly, David Veyer, Hélène Péré
• Journal: Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (Clin Infect Dis) Vol. 75 Issue 1 Pg. e410-e417 (08 24 2022) ISSN: 1537-6591 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 34894121 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)
• Copyright: © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail: [email protected].

Chemical References

• Biomarkers
• RNA
• Ribonuclease P

Topics

• Biomarkers
• COVID-19 (diagnosis)
• Humans
• Prognosis
• RNA
• Ribonuclease P
• SARS-CoV-2