Impact of DNA clearance on mortality in patients with severe COVID-19 infections

Severe severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, as well as microbial sepsis, has been found to be associated with significant mortality rates.

According to News Medical, they share certain pathological features such as coagulopathy, hyper inflammation, and immune dysfunction that can in turn lead to organ failure. Sepsis associated with secondary infection is also reported to be common in patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 infections. However, the treatment options are not clearly understood.

Cell-free chromatin has been found to circulate in SARS-CoV-2 patients and microbial sepsis that can be linked to coagulopathy, hyper inflammation, and immune dysfunction in murine models. Mice that lack DNase I and DNase I L3 have been found to develop severe sepsis following sterile or microbial challenges. Also, chronic autoimmunity and severe thermal injury are associated with low DNA and NET clearance activity. However, the effect of acute infection on the DNA clearance mechanism is still unknown. Previous studies also indicated that T cell death along with actin release can be associated with increased risk for thrombosis in murine models of fungal sepsis.

A new study published in the pre-print server medRxiv* involved activity-based proteomic profiling of patients who had severe SARS-CoV-2 infections to understand the impact of DNA clearance on mortality.