ORIGINAL ARTICLE   Free access

Minerva Pneumologica 2020 December;59(4):70-5

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4954.20.01888-X

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Proinflammatory and immunomodulatory cytokine mRNA changes by real-time RT-PCR in patients with COVID-19 hospitalization in the ICU and people recovering from the disease

Hamidreza JAMAATI ¹, Mihan POURABDOLLAH ¹, Payam TABARSI ², Naghmeh BAHRAMI ³, Mehdi KAZEMPOUR DIZAJI ⁴, Elham ASKARI ¹, Behrooz FARZANEGAN ⁵, Arda KIANI ⁵, Atefeh ABEDINI ⁵, Mohammad VARAHRAM ⁶, Mahya DAUSTANY ⁷, Somaieh LOOKZADEH ¹, Fateme MONJAZEBI ¹, Abdolreza MOHAMADNIA ^{1, 8} ✉, Ali A. VELAYATI ⁶

¹ Chronic Respiratory Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ² Clinical Tuberculosis and Epidemiology Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ³ Craniomaxillofacial Research Center, Department of Tissue Engineering and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ⁴ Mycobacteriology Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and lung Diseases, Department of Biostatistics, Masih Daneshvari Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ⁵ Tracheal Diseases Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ⁶ Mycobacteriology Research Center, National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (NRITLD), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; ⁷ Department of Biotechnology, Faculty of Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran; ⁸ Department of Biotechnology, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

BACKGROUND: A big difficulty in today’s world, the Coronavirus has affected all industries and man’s life. The disease is caused by a type of the Coronavirus known as COVID-19. A living activated complex, the body is capable of offering various reactions from the defense system against the virus. It should be noted that the most important reaction of the body to the virus involves an activation of the cytotoxic T-shaped cells, which can destroy infected cells as a result of their activity. A more accurate recognition of the cytokine storm mechanism in this disease can greatly contribute to its treatment. In the present study, we investigated the use of IL-10, IL-6, IL-2, and TNF-α cytokines in patients with severe conditions at the Intensive Care Unit, and compared that to the real-time PCR method used to relieve the disease in patients.
METHODS: We analyzed 30 blood samples from patients with severe conditions and 30 from cured ones using relative real-time RT-PCR, the results of which were subject to statistical analysis using SPSS 20. Moreover, groups of the same age were compared using the t-test.
RESULTS: The results showed that age in groups with severe symptoms that were hospitalized in the ICU and people recovering from the disease did not have a significant effect. There was an increase in the expression of IL-10, IL-6, IL-2, and TNF-α cytokine genes in the peripheral blood of patients admitted to the ICU compared with those with recovered disease, and there was a significant difference (P value <0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: The numerical value of fold change for the cytokine genes of IL-10, IL-6, IL-2, and TNF-α in patients admitted to the ICU, compared to recovered patients are 1.28, 1.12, 1.30, 1.22 respectively.

KEY WORDS: COVID-19; Gene expression; Cytokines; Coronavirus