Procalcitonin and other biomarkers in COVID-19

[2020-07-01]

Procalcitonin in Emergency Department Patients With Suspected COVID-19
Presentation  by Dr. Charles Cairns

On using biomarkers (classifiers) to distinguish between causes of acute inflammation (infectious vs non infectious, bacterial vs viral, co-infections) with emphasis on procalcitonin. Procalcitonin is elevated in severe covid, but not in non-severe (95% of cases) 
5:37 inflammatory response over the time course of infection / injury recovery 
12:15 sepsis survivors vs. sepsis non-survivors gene expression profile shows marked difference 
16:54 procalcitonin (PCT) is a prohormone of calcitonin ; elevated PCT levels indicate bacterial infection accompanied by systemic inflammatory reaction 
24:28 nice diagram of events in SARS-CoV-2 infection 
25:09 another really nice diagram { seems to indicate that antibody dependent enhancement can occur in the course of a single infection, rather than during a re-infection } 
29:11 laboratory parameters in covid-19 patients 33:10 angiogenesis in in lungs from covid-19 or flu (H1N1) D-dimer may be laboratory correlate of angiogenesis; { probably more directly correlated to hypoxia inducible factor, but I guess d-dimer is something more routinely measured } 
34:51 non-survivors: elevated high LDL, high PCT, increased ferritin, elevated IL-6 
35:55 review of PCT in covid-19 
37:13 summary of presentation
"we need to understand the role of bacterial super infection in patients"



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Directory of STEM & Mastodon Instances

I've started a directory of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] and medical mastodon instances - mainly English language. Here's the link to the Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hZz1FB2HP-nqXNHigaiExFWvWTkMJ-TwYJa8W3Pdh-Q/edit?usp=sharing If you want to add to the form either request permission to edit through the form or you can message me: http://zeroes.ca/@Rhyothemis   I also have a list of Mastodon / FediVerse STEM and medical hashtags: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Alc8MlwDCziS6Z-CFij5A6A1MKQtGYTeO--xfW1vl6A/edit?usp=sharing    It's a shame what's happened with Twitter - it was great tool for rapid science communication and SciComm in general. I'm hoping more researchers find a new home in the FediVerse and make liberal use of hashtags so as to avoid siloing of information.
Read more

collagen peptides, prolyl-hydroxyproline, aspartate transaminase (AST) - brief notes

Marine collagen peptides have antioxidant properties.  Characterization and Antioxidant Activity of Collagen, Gelatin, and the Derived Peptides from Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares) Skin [2020] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32023998/  Functional and bioactive properties of collagen and gelatin from alternative sources: A review [2011] - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268005X11000427 "The exact mechanism underlying the antioxidant activity of peptides is not fully understood, but various studies have shown that they are lipid peroxidation inhibitors, free radical scavengers and transition metal ion chelators. According to some studies, gelatin peptides could inhibit lipid peroxidation more efficiently than antioxidative peptides derived from many other protein sources ...   .. peptides isolated from hoki skin gelatin were capable of enhancing the expression of antioxidative enzymes such as glutathione peroxidase, catalase and superoxide...
Read more

cold exposure & breast cancer

A recent flare up of fibrocystic breast symptoms had me wondering if use of cold packs has any effect on breast cancer (BC) risk. Cold packs are often recommended for mastalgia (breast pain) from fibrocystic breast disease, mastitis, engorgement due to breast feeding cessation, and post breast cancer surgery. Whole body cold exposure has been found to increase tumor growth and metastasis in mice: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269266 T-cell function is diminished at colder temperature leading to reduced anti-tumor immune responses. The article notes implications for standard research practice of housing mice at relatively colder temperatures - another thing to add to the list of problems in current practices.  (Could cold acclimation be used to promote tolerance in autoimmunity and atopy? Another topic for another day.) The mice were subjected to whole body cold exposure  - not spot treatment. It is conceivable that reducing acute inflammation through localized cold...
Read more

SARS-CoV-2 induced expression changes in ACE2 and associated genes

Image
[2020-07-07] Fadason et al. (2020)           A preprint  by Fadason et al. [1] discusses a mechanism by which SARS-CoV-2 could alter gene expression of ACE2 and associated genes and produce a host environment that favors its replication. In doing so, it looks like the virus not only 'takes out' ACE2 by binding with its catalytic domain (see update below), it may also decrease ACE2 expression. I am not familiar with this type of alteration of chromatin structure and I don't know how long lasting the changes could be. Some epigenetic alterations can be quite long lasting, even multi-generational.         S everal genes in the network that are also affected impact lipid metabolism and gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis can also be a response to hypoxia [2] and is a common feature of the acute phase response in both infection and injury [5].                      The ar...
Read more