Extracellular vesicle-mediated endothelial apoptosis and EV-associated proteins correlate with COVID-19 disease severity

Balaji Krishnamachary, Christine Cook, Ashok Kumar, Leslie Spikes, Prabhakar Chalise, Navneet K. Dhillon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has lead to a global pandemic with a rising toll in infections and deaths. Better understanding of its pathogenesis will greatly improve the outcomes and treatment of affected patients. Here we compared the inflammatory and cardiovascular disease-related protein cargo of circulating large and small extracellular vesicles (EVs) from 84 hospitalized patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 with different stages of disease severity. Our findings reveal significant enrichment of proinflammatory, procoagulation, immunoregulatory and tissue-remodelling protein signatures in EVs, which remarkably distinguished symptomatic COVID-19 patients from uninfected controls with matched comorbidities and delineated those with moderate disease from those who were critically ill. Specifically, EN-RAGE, followed by TF and IL-18R1, showed the strongest correlation with disease severity and length of hospitalization. Importantly, EVs from COVID-19 patients induced apoptosis of pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells in the order of disease severity. In conclusion, our findings support a role for EVs in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 disease and underpin the development of EV-based approaches to predicting disease severity, determining need for patient hospitalization and identifying new therapeutic targets.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere12117
JournalJournal of Extracellular Vesicles
Volume10
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • SARS-CoV-2
  • endothelial injury
  • inflammation
  • thrombosis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Histology
  • Cell Biology

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