Decreased Serum Level of Sphingosine-1-phosphate: a Novel Predictor of Clinical Severity in COVID-19

Overview

Journal EMBO Mol Med

Specialty Molecular Biology

Date 2020 Nov 15

PMID 33190411

Citations 58

Authors

Giovanni Marfia

Stefania Navone

Laura Guarnaccia

Rolando Campanella

Michele Mondoni

Marco Locatelli

Alessandra Barassi

Laura Fontana

Fabrizio Palumbo

Emanuele Garzia

Giuseppe Ciniglio Appiani

Davide Chiumello

Monica Miozzo

Stefano Centanni

Laura Riboni

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a crucial problem in patient treatment and outcome. The aim of this study is to evaluate circulating level of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) along with severity markers, in COVID-19 patients. One hundred eleven COVID-19 patients and forty-seven healthy subjects were included. The severity of COVID-19 was found significantly associated with anemia, lymphocytopenia, and significant increase of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, ferritin, fibrinogen, aminotransferases, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), C-reactive protein (CRP), and D-dimer. Serum S1P level was inversely associated with COVID-19 severity, being significantly correlated with CRP, LDH, ferritin, and D-dimer. The decrease in S1P was strongly associated with the number of erythrocytes, the major source of plasma S1P, and both apolipoprotein M and albumin, the major transporters of blood S1P. Not last, S1P was found to be a relevant predictor of admission to an intensive care unit, and patient's outcome. Circulating S1P emerged as negative biomarker of severity/mortality of COVID-19 patients. Restoring abnormal S1P levels to a normal range may have the potential to be a therapeutic target in patients with COVID-19.

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