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Dysregulated autoantibodies targeting vaso- and immunoregulatory receptors in Post COVID Syndrome correlate with symptom severity 2022 Scheibenbogen

Discussion in 'ME/CFS research' started by Sly Saint, Sep 28, 2022.

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  1. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Most patients with Post COVID Syndrome (PCS) present with a plethora of symptoms without clear evidence of organ dysfunction.

    A subset of them fulfills diagnostic criteria of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Symptom severity of ME/CFS correlates with natural regulatory autoantibody (AAB) levels targeting several G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR).

    In this exploratory study, we analyzed serum AAB levels against vaso- and immunoregulatory receptors, mostly GPCRs, in 80 PCS patients following mild-to-moderate COVID-19, with 40 of them fulfilling diagnostic criteria of ME/CFS. Healthy seronegative (n=38) and asymptomatic post COVID-19 controls (n=40) were also included in the study as control groups. We found lower levels for various AABs in PCS compared to at least one control group, accompanied by alterations in the correlations among AABs. Classification using random forest indicated AABs targeting ADRB2, STAB1, and ADRA2A as the strongest classifiers (AABs stratifying patients according to disease outcomes) of post COVID-19 outcomes. Several AABs correlated with symptom severity in PCS groups. Remarkably, severity of fatigue and vasomotor symptoms were associated with ADRB2 AAB levels in PCS/ME/CFS patients.

    Our study identified dysregulation of AAB against various receptors involved in the autonomous nervous system (ANS), vaso-, and immunoregulation and their correlation with symptom severity, pointing to their role in the pathogenesis of PCS.

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2022.981532/full
     
    Sly Saint, Sep 28, 2022
    #1
    Lilas, Hutan, wastwater and 4 others like this.
  2. RedFox

    RedFox Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    All this research on GPCR autoantibodies is interesting, but I'm not sure what to make of it.
     
    RedFox, Sep 28, 2022
    #2
    Hutan, wastwater, Peter Trewhitt and 1 other person like this.
  3. Hutan

    Hutan Moderator Staff Member

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    The structure of the study is good, with the ME/CFS subset and the healthy post-Covid-19 controls.

    It's notable that lower levels of autoantibodies were found in the Long Covid people, compared to the other groups. I haven't looked at the paper yet, but the results (e.g. "compared to at least one control group") aren't sounding very consistent. It's sounding a lot like random noise.

    The reference for that is this 2021 study:
    Autoantibodies to Vasoregulative G-Protein-Coupled Receptors Correlate with Symptom Severity, Autonomic Dysfunction and Disability in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
    That study, which I'm sure we have a thread for (yes, here it is), didn't actually have healthy controls. So we don't know if the absolute levels of the AABs were abnormally high or low. What we do know is that symptoms like fatigue were positively correlated with higher levels of some AABs, but I don't think it was very convincing either way. The researchers subsetted the ME/CFS people into infective and non-infective onset, and the correlations between various symptoms and levels of AABs sometimes were positive in one subset and negative in the other.


    So, maybe there is some complicated dysregulation in AABs yet to be properly understood, but it's definitely not a matter of just higher (or lower) levels of these AABs causing ME/CFS (or ME/CFS after Covid-19).
     
    Hutan, Oct 27, 2022
    #3
    Lilas, RedFox and Trish like this.

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