GSE160351
Macrophage expression and prognostic significance of the long pentraxin PTX3 in COVID-19
PTX3 is an essential component of humoral innate immunity, involved in resistance to selected pathogens and in the regulation of inflammation1-3. The present study was designed to assess the presence and significance of PTX3 in COVID-194-7. RNA-seq analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells, single-cell bioinformatics analysis and immunohistochemistry of lung autopsy samples revealed that myelomonocytic cells and endothelial cells express high levels of PTX3 in COVID-19 patients. Increased plasma concentrations of PTX3 were detected in 96 COVID-19 patients. PTX3 emerged as a strong independent predictor of 28-day mortality in multivariable analysis, better than conventional markers of inflammation, in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The prognostic significance of PTX3 abundance for mortality was confirmed in a second independent cohort (54 patients). Thus, circulating and lung myelomonocytic cells and endothelial cells are a major source of PTX3, and PTX3 plasma concentration can serve as an independent strong prognostic indicator of short-term mortality in COVID-19. Overall design: Monocytes were isolated from peripheral blood samples of three healthy donors and six COVID-19 patients and RNA expression was measured with total RNA-Seq.