Impact of Viral Decontamination Method on Cytokine Profile of COVID-19 Patients

Overview

Journal Biomedicines

Specialty Biomedical Engineering

Date 2021 Oct 23

PMID 34680404

Authors

Davide Magri

Anna Navarro

Federica Bergami

Elena Percivalle

Alessandro Ferrari

Teresa Lettieri

Luigi Calzolai

Antonio Piralla

Fausto Baldanti

Sabrina Gioria

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

COVID-19 related morbidity and mortality have been often attributed to an exaggerated immune response. The role of cytokines and chemokines in COVID-19 and their contributions to illness severity are known, and thus their profiling from patient bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples would help in understanding the disease progression. To date, limited studies have been performed on COVID-19 BAL samples, as the manipulation of such specimens (potentially containing live viruses) requires several laboratorial precautions, such as personnel training and special equipment, a requirement that not all laboratories can fulfil. Here, we assessed two fast and easily applicable methods (ultrafiltration and ultraviolet-C irradiation) for their impact on viral load removal or inactivation, respectively and on cytokine profiles preservation. Eight samples of BAL fluids from SARS-CoV2 patients with high viral load were tested. For both methods, complete removal was confirmed by lack of viral replication in Vero E6 cells and by RT-qPCR. Although both methods showed to remove completely the active SARS-CoV2 viral load, only UVC treatment has little or no quantitative effect on total cytokines/chemokines measurements, however cytokines profile and relative ratios are preserved or minimally altered when compared data obtained by the two different decontamination methods. Sample preparation and manipulation can greatly affect the analytical results; therefore, understanding if changes occurred after sample processing is of outmost importance for reliable data and can be useful to improve clinical practice.

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