A comparative study on proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-17A and interleukin-17F expressions in whole blood of patients with COVID-19.

BACKGROUND AND

OBJECTIVES

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has expanded rapidly to all over the world. Interleukin-17 is one of the inflammatory cytokines which is highly expressed in the blood of individuals with COVID-19. Our aim in the present survey was to assess the mRNA expression levels of cytokine IL-17A, IL-17F and TNF-α in the blood of COVID-19 patients compared with healthy control individuals.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

A total of 69 patients including 32 mild patients, 20 severe and 17 asymptomatic patients in comparison with 25 healthy controls were evaluated. To measure the expression profile of IL-17A and IL-17F in whole blood, quantitative PCR was used.

RESULTS

Asymptomatic, mild, and severe SARS-CoV-2 infections were found to have significantly higher levels of IL-17A and IL-17F mRNAs than the healthy group (fold change IL-17A: 3.778; p= 0.002, 4.003; p= 0.001, 2.608; p= 0.0001 respectively, fold change IL-17F: 2.967; p= 0.003, 3.819; p= 0.001, 2.617; p= 0.0012 respectively). TNF-α mRNA expression was also measured, which shows an approximately similar increase compared to IL-17 (fold change: 2.726; p= 0.002, 2.383; P= 0.001, 2.631; p= 0.001, respectively).

CONCLUSION

SARS-CoV-2 infection severity was associated with blood levels of IL-17A and IL-17F mRNA.