Biology

Acute-phase protein

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Immunology

Genetics

In vitro

Peripheral blood mononuclear cell

Inflammation

Infectious disease (medical specialty)

Internal medicine

Medicine

Disease

Pathogenesis

The Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases

One of the hallmarks of COVID-19 is overwhelming inflammation, which plays a very important role in the pathogenesis of COVID-19. Thus, identification of inflammatory factors that interact with the SARS-CoV-2 can be very important to control and diagnose the severity of COVID-19. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression patterns of inflammation-related non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) including MALAT-1, NEAT-1, THRIL, and miR-155-5p from the acute phase to the recovery phase of COVID-19.Total RNA was extracted from Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell (PBMC) samples of 20 patients with acute COVID-19 infection and 20 healthy individuals and the expression levels of MALAT-1, NEAT-1, THRIL, and miR-155-5p were evaluated by real-time PCR assay. Besides, in order to monitor the expression pattern of selected ncRNAs from the acute phase to the recovery phase of COVID-19 disease, the levels of ncRNAs were re-measured 6‒7 weeks after the acute phase.The mean expression levels of MALAT-1, THRIL, and miR-155-5p were significantly increased in the acute phase of COVID-19 compared with a healthy control group. In addition, the expression levels of MALAT-1 and THRIL in the post-acute phase of COVID-19 were significantly lower than in the acute phase of COVID-19. According to the ROC curve analysis, these ncRNAs could be considered useful biomarkers for COVID-19 diagnosis and for discriminating between acute and post-acute phase of COVID-19.Inflammation-related ncRNAs (MALAT-1, THRIL, and miR-150-5p) can act as hopeful biomarkers for the monitoring and diagnosis of COVID-19 disease.

The expression patterns of MALAT-1, NEAT-1, THRIL, and miR-155-5p in the acute to the post-acute phase of COVID-19 disease