Abstracts

001. Jonas Schulte-Schrepping, Nico Reusch, Daniela Paclik, Kevin Baßler, Stephan Schlickeiser, Bowen Zhang, Benjamin Krämer. Life and Medical Sciences (LIMES) Institute, University of Bonn, Germany. Severe COVID-19 Is Marked by a Dysregulated Myeloid Cell Compartment. Cell,, 2020, 182 (6), Pages: 1419-1440.e23..

 

      Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a mild to moderate respiratory tract infection, however, a subset of patients progress to severe disease and respiratory failure. The mechanism of protective immunity in mild forms and the pathogenesis of severe COVID-19 associated with increased neutrophil counts and dysregulated immune responses remain unclear. In a dual-center, two-cohort study, we combined single-cell RNA-sequencing and single-cell proteomics of whole-blood and peripheral-blood mononuclear cells to determine changes in immune cell composition and activation in mild versus severe COVID-19 (242 samples from 109 individuals) over time. HLA-DRhiCD11chi inflammatory monocytes with an interferon-stimulated gene signature were elevated in mild COVID-19. Severe COVID-19 was marked by occurrence of neutrophil precursors, as evidence of emergency myelopoiesis, dysfunctional mature neutrophils, and HLA-DRlo monocytes. Our study provides detailed insights into the systemic immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and reveals profound alterations in the myeloid cell compartment associated with severe COVID-19.

 

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, monocytes, neutrophils,  dysfunctional neutrophils, emergency myelopoiesis, immune profiling, scRNA-seq, mass cytometry.

 

002. Augusto Di Castelnuovo, Simona Costanzo, Andrea Antinori, Nausicaa Berselli, Lorenzo Blandi, Marialaura Bonaccio, Roberto Cauda, Alessandro Gialluisi. UOC Immunodeficienze Virali, National Institute for Infectious Diseases “L. Spallanzani”, IRCCS, Roma, Italy RAAS inhibitors are not associated with mortality in COVID-19 patients: Findings from an observational multicenter study in Italy and a meta-analysis of 19 studies. Vascular Pharmacology, 2020, 135, Pages: 106805.

 

Objectives

 

      The hypothesis that been set forward that use of Renin Angiotensin Aldosterone System (RAAS) inhibitors is associated with COVID−19 severity. We set-up a multicenter Italian collaboration (CORIST Project, ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT04318418) to retrospectively investigate the relationship between RAAS inhibitors and COVID−19 in-hospital mortality. We also carried out an updated meta-analysis on the relevant studies.

 

Methods

 

      We analyzed 4069 unselected patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and hospitalized in 34 clinical centers in Italy from February 19, 2020 to May 23, 2020. The primary end-point in a time-to event analysis was in-hospital death, comparing patients who received angiotensin-converting–enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) or angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARB) with patients who did not. Articles for the meta-analysis were retrieved until July 13th, 2020 by searching in web-based libraries, and data were combined using the general variance-based method.

 

Results

 

      Out of 4069 COVID−19 patients, 13.5% and 13.3% received ACE-I or ARB, respectively. Use of neither ACE-I nor ARB was associated with mortality (multivariable hazard ratio (HR) adjusted also for COVID−19 treatments: 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.77–1.20 and HR = 0.89, 0.67–1.19 for ACE-I and ARB, respectively). Findings were similar restricting the analysis to hypertensive (N = 2057) patients (HR = 1.00, 0.78–1.26 and HR = 0.88, 0.65–1.20) or when ACE-I or ARB were considered as a single group. Results from the meta-analysis (19 studies, 29,057 COVID−19 adult patients, 9700 with hypertension) confirmed the absence of association.

 

Conclusions

 

      In this observational study and meta-analysis of the literature, ACE-I or ARB use was not associated with severity or in-hospital mortality in COVID−19 patients.

 

Keywords:Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, ACE-I,  Angiotensin receptor blockers, ARB, Sartans, COVID−19, Mortality..

ENVIS CENTRE Newsletter Vol.18, Issue 2, Apr - June, 2020
 
 
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