Establishing the prevalence of common tissue-specific autoantibodies following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. (13th June 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Richter, Alex G; Shields, Adrian M; Karim, Abid; Birch, David; Faustini, Sian E; Steadman, Lora; Ward, Kerensa; Plant, Timothy; Reynolds, Gary; Veenith, Tonny; Cunningham, Adam F; Drayson, Mark T; Wraith, David C
• Is Part Of: Clinical and experimental immunology. Volume 205:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 99
• Page End: 105
• Publication Date: 2021-06-13
• Subjects: autoantibodies -- autoimmunity -- COVID-19 -- long COVID -- SARS-CoV-2; Immunopathology -- Periodicals; 616.079
• DOI: 10.1111/cei.13623
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0009-9104

Abstract

Summary: Coronavirus 19 (COVID-19) has been associated with both transient and persistent systemic symptoms that do not appear to be a direct consequence of viral infection. The generation of autoantibodies has been proposed as a mechanism to explain these symptoms. To understand the prevalence of autoantibodies associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, we investigated the frequency and specificity of clinically relevant autoantibodies in 84 individuals previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, suffering from COVID-19 of varying severity in both the acute and convalescent setting. These were compared with results from 32 individuals who were on the intensive therapy unit (ITU) for non-COVID reasons. We demonstrate a higher frequency of autoantibodies in the COVID-19 ITU group compared with non-COVID-19 ITU disease control patients and that autoantibodies were also found in the serum 3–5 months post-COVID-19 infection. Non-COVID patients displayed a diverse pattern of autoantibodies; in contrast, the COVID-19 groups had a more restricted panel of autoantibodies including skin, skeletal muscle and cardiac antibodies. Our results demonstrate that respiratory viral infection with SARS-CoV-2 is associated with the detection of a limited profile of tissue-specific autoantibodies, detectable using routine clinical immunology assays. Further studies are required to determine whether these autoantibodies are specific to SARS-CoV-2 or a phenomenon arising from severe viral infections and to determine the clinical significance of these autoantibodies. Graphical Abstract: