Cell-free DNA tissues of origin by methylation profiling reveals significant cell, tissue, and organ-specific injury related to COVID-19 severity.

BACKGROUND

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) primarily affects the lungs, but evidence of systemic disease with multi-organ involvement is emerging. Here, we developed a blood test to broadly quantify cell-, tissue-, and organ-specific injury due to COVID-19.

METHODS

Our test leverages genome-wide methylation profiling of circulating cell-free DNA in plasma. We assessed the utility of this test to identify subjects with severe disease in two independent, longitudinal cohorts of hospitalized patients. Cell-free DNA profiling was performed on 104 plasma samples from 33 COVID-19 patients and compared to samples from patients with other viral infections and healthy controls.

FINDINGS: We found evidence of injury to the lung and liver and involvement of red blood cell progenitors associated with severe COVID-19. The concentration of cell-free DNA correlated with the World Health Organization (WHO) ordinal scale for disease progression and was significantly increased in patients requiring intubation.

CONCLUSIONS

This study points to the utility of cell-free DNA as an analyte to monitor and study COVID-19.

FUNDING: This work was supported by NIH grants 1DP2AI138242 (to I.D.V.), R01AI146165 (to I.D.V., M.P.C., F.M.M., and J.R.), 1R01AI151059 (to I.D.V.), K08-CA230156 (to W.G.), and R33-AI129455 to C.Y.C., a Synergy award from the Rainin Foundation (to I.D.V.), a SARS-CoV-2 seed grant at Cornell (to I.D.V.), a National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada fellowship PGS-D3 (to A.P.C.), and a Burroughs-Wellcome CAMS Award (to W.G.). D.C.V. is supported by a Fonds de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec Clinical Research Scholar Junior 2 award. C.Y.C. is supported by the California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine, and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation.