After recovering from COVID-19, many individuals have prolonged symptoms, especially females who exhibit a higher risk of post-COVID-19 conditions. To explore the biology underlying post-COVID-19 conditions, the ARBs CORONA I team, led by Dr. Jim Russell, measured proteins in blood plasma over six months from 74 patients in a Canadian cohort. Proteins associated with lipid-related pathways were significantly increased during this period, suggesting that they play a role in the transition from acute to post-COVID-19 conditions. On the other hand, proteins related to innate immune responses and blood vessel regulation decreased. Several biological functions were regulated differently in males as compared to females, potentially explaining why females have a higher risk for more severe post-COVID-19 conditions compared to males. The team also found 13 proteins associated with patients’ lung function.
doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00324
“Our study shows that lipid biology appears to be an important driver of the transition from acute to post-COVID-19 conditions,” says Dr. Russell. “These pathways could be important drug targets for preventing severe lung disease after COVID-19. The next step is to test drugs that modulate lipid levels and function, such as PCSK9 inhibitors. One PCSK9 inhibitor, Repatha, decreased mortality of acute COVID, and could also mitigate risk and severity of long COVID.”
This work has been published in the Journal of Proteome Research:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00324
Proteomic Evolution from Acute to Post-COVID-19 Conditions
Yassene Mohammed*, Karen Tran, Chris Carlsten, Christopher Ryerson, Alyson Wong, Terry Lee, Matthew P. Cheng, Donald C. Vinh, Todd C. Lee, Brent W. Winston, David Sweet, John H. Boyd, Keith R. Walley, Greg Haljan, Allison McGeer, Francois Lamontagne, Robert Fowler, David Maslove, Joel Singer, David M. Patrick, John C. Marshall, Srinivas Murthy, Fagun Jain, Christoph H. Borchers, David R. Goodlett, Adeera Levin, James A. Russell, and ARBs CORONA I Consortium