[en] A significant proportion of COVID-19 patients develop long-term complications, particularly cardiovascular and neurological issues. Even though risk factors for developing complications after COVID-19 have been identified, a biomarker to predict these complications could enable personalized healthcare and potentially reduce the disease burden. Easily measurable in the blood, the long noncoding RNA LEF1-AS1 has recently been associated with in-hospital mortality following SARS-CoV - 2 infection and holds potential as a biomarker for disease severity in COVID-19 patients. Consequently, we examined LEF1-AS1's ability to predict cardiovascular and neurological complications after COVID-19. LEF1-AS1 has been measured in the blood by quantitative PCR in 104 primo-infected participants from the Predi-COVID cohort within 3 days post clinical PCR-confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis. Among them, 35 participants (34 %) reported at least one persistent cardiovascular symptom and at least one persistent neurological or ocular symptom in a self-administered questionnaire 12 months after COVID-19 diagnosis. Blood levels of LEF1-AS1 at baseline in these patients were lower (p = 0.019) compared to those who did not report symptoms. Lower LEF1-AS1 levels were associated with symptoms with an odds ratio of 0.48 (95 % confidence interval 0.28-0.83) in a logistic regression model adjusted for age, sex, comorbidity, and moderate disease severity at baseline. LEF1-AS1 expression was positively correlated with the frequency of naïve T cells and negatively correlated with the frequency of effector memory T cells among total CD8+ T cells, revealing a potential association between LEF1-AS1 and CD8+ T-cell differentiation following SARS-CoV-2 infection. In conclusion, blood levels of LEF1-AS1 can potentially help in predicting 12-month cardiovascular and neurological complications in COVID-19 patients, though this finding requires validation in larger cohorts.
Disciplines :
Life sciences: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Author, co-author :
Vausort, Mélanie; Cardiovascular Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
Lumley, Andrew I; Cardiovascular Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
Boubakeur, Hassina; Cardiovascular Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
Zhang, Lu; Bioinformatics and AI Unit, Department of Medical Informatics, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
Hefeng, Feng Q; Department of Infection and Immunity, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
OLLERT, Markus ; University of Luxembourg ; Department of Infection and Immunity, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Esch-Sur-Alzette, Luxembourg ; Department of Dermatology and Allergy Center, Odense Research Center for Anaphylaxis (ORCA), University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
WILMES, Paul ; University of Luxembourg > Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) > Systems Ecology
FAGHERAZZI, Guy ; University of Luxembourg ; Deep Digital Phenotyping Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
DEVAUX, Yvan ; University of Luxembourg ; Cardiovascular Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg
External co-authors :
no
Language :
English
Title :
Association of LEF1-AS1 with cardiovascular and neurological complications of COVID-19.
FNR16954531 - CoVaLux - Covid-19, Vaccination And Longer-term Health Consequences Of Covid-19 In Luxembourg, 2021 (01/12/2021-30/11/2024) - Paul Wilmes
Funding text :
This work was supported by the Luxembourg Government through the CoVaLux programme (16954531).Y.D. is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 project COVIRNA (grant agreement # 101016072), the National Research Fund (grant # COVID-19/2020-1/14719577/miRCOVID), the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and the Heart Foundation-Daniel Wagner of Luxembourg.This work was supported by the Luxembourg Government through the CoVaLux programme (16954531).Y.D. is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 project COVIRNA (grant agreement # 101016072 ), the National Research Fund (grant # COVID-19/2020-1/14719577/miRCOVID ), the Ministry of Higher Education and Research , and the Heart Foundation-Daniel Wagner of Luxembourg .
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