Abstract
Aims: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is a highly contagious disease, is an ongoing outbreak worldwide with high morbidity and mortality. The approaches targeting the autophagy processes might have promising diagnostic and therapeutic values against Coronavirus infection. Here, we aimed to investigate the relationship of Beclin-1 (BECN1), an autophagy-related protein, with blood parameters and the clinical severity in patients with COVID-19.
Materials and methods: We enrolled 108 patients with COVID-19 and 21 healthy controls in this study, from September 2020 to January 2021 and divided all patients into two groups according to the severity of the disease: The non-severe group and the severe group. BECN1 levels and blood parameters were measured with Enzyme-Linked Absorbent Assay and routine techniques, respectively.
Key findings: Serum BECN1 levels were increased in patients with COVID-19 compared to the healthy controls, and its concentrations were significantly higher in the severe group than in the non-severe group (p < 0.001). BECN1 levels showed a significantly positive correlation with coagulation markers such as D-dimer and Fibrinogen (FIB) and inflammation markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), Procalcitonin (PCT), Ferritin and biochemical markers such as Blood urea nitrogen and Lactate dehydrogenase (p < 0.001). We detected that areas under the ROC curve for BECN1, D-dimer, FIB, PCT, CRP and Ferritin were 0.8662, 0.9110, 0.8278, 0.9996 and 0.9284, respectively (p < 0.0001).
Significance: BECN1 may serve as a predictive biomarker in evaluating the disease severity of COVID-19. Our data suggest that BECN1 mediated-autophagy modulation might have a promising value in improving the clinical outcomes of COVID-19.
Keywords: Autophagy; Beclin 1; COVID-19; Disease severity; Predictive marker.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, disease severity, autophagy, Beclin 1, Predictive marker, 【초록키워드】 coronavirus disease, Coronavirus infection, Coronavirus disease 2019, Biomarker, severity, disease severity, Infection, diagnostic, C-reactive protein, CRP, D-dimer, ferritin, procalcitonin, lactate dehydrogenase, autophagy, clinical outcomes, Coagulation, Clinical outcome, Protein, outbreak, severity of COVID-19, therapeutic, Patient, fibrinogen, morbidity and mortality, urea nitrogen, contagious disease, disease, biochemical markers, inflammation markers, Blood, marker, Clinical severity, Lactate, Beclin 1, Concentration, ROC Curve, Predictive, nitrogen, urea, Blood urea nitrogen, two groups, modulation, approaches, enzyme, healthy control, positive correlation, severe group, dimer, healthy controls, material, non-severe group, contagious, parameter, disease severity of COVID-19, approach, BECN1, controls, PCT, biochemical marker, enrolled, significantly, the disease, significantly higher, two group, were measured, Absorbent, inflammation marker, patients with COVID-19, the healthy, 【제목키워드】 Protein, severity of COVID-19, the disease,