Alterations of Urinary Microbial Metabolites and Immune Indexes Linked With COVID-19 Infection and Prognosis

Frontiers in Immunology

Haiyan Zhang¹  Jing Wang¹  Jungang Li¹  Jiaxiu Liu¹  Kun Yang¹  Ting Zhao³  Yixian Jing³  Yaokai Chen³  Jing Wu⁴ 

[1] Department of Clinical Laboratory, Chongqing Public Health Medical Center, Chongqing, China;Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China;Division of Infectious Diseases, Chongqing Public Health Medical Center, Chongqing, China;National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China (NHC) Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment on Brain Functional Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China;

关键词: COVID-19;    urinary microbial metabolites;    immune dysfunction;    diagnostic performance;    high-risk sequelae COVID-19;    high-risk sequelae;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fimmu.2022.841739

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has evolved into an established global pandemic. Metabolomic studies in COVID-19 patients is worth exploring for further available screening methods. In our study, we recruited a study cohort of 350 subjects comprising 248 COVID-19 patients (161 non-severe cases, 60 asymptomatic cases, and 27 severe cases) and 102 healthy controls (HCs), and herein present data with respect to their demographic features, urinary metabolome, immunological indices, and follow-up health status. We found that COVID-19 resulted in alterations of 39 urinary, mainly microbial, metabolites. Using random forest analysis, a simplified marker panel including three microbial metabolites (oxoglutaric acid, indoxyl, and phenylacetamide) was constructed (AUC=0.963, 95% CI, 0.930-0.983), which exhibited higher diagnostic performance than immune feature-based panels between COVID-19 and HC groups (P<0.0001). Meanwhile, we observed that urine metabolic markers enabled discriminating asymptomatic patients (ASY) from HCs (AUC = 0.981, 95% CI, 0.946-0.996), and predicting the incidence of high-risk sequalae in COVID-19 individuals (AUC=0.931, 95% CI, 0.877-0.966). Co-expression network analysis showed that 13 urinary microbial metabolites (e.g., oxoglutaric acid) were significantly correlated with alterations of CD4+, CD3+, and CD8+ T-cells, as well as IFN-γ, IL-2 and IL-4 levels, suggesting close interactions between microbial metabolites and host immune dysregulation in COVID-19. Taken together, our findings indicate that urinary metabolites may have promising potential for screening of COVID-19 in different application scenarios, and provide a new entry point to understand the microbial metabolites and related immune dysfunction in COVID-19.

【 授权许可】

Unknown