January 16, 2024
Kyoto University
Keio University
A research group from the Multi-omics Platform, Center for Cancer Immunotherapy and Immunobiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, led by Technical Assistant Rei Maeda, Researcher Natsumi Seki, and Project Associate Professor Yuki Sugiura (Senior Lecturer, Department of Biochemistry, Keio University School of Medicine at the time the research began), has identified metabolites that serve as biomarkers for predicting the risk of severe disease. Using serum from patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), the team compared patients who recovered with mild symptoms to those who developed severe illness during the early stages of infection.
COVID-19 became a global pandemic, causing many deaths. While some infected individuals remain asymptomatic or experience only mild symptoms, others develop progressive pneumonia and become severely ill. Although people prone to severe illness should receive prompt treatment after infection, it has been difficult to predict in the early stages of infection whether a patient will develop a severe case. In this study, the research team focused on "metabolites" in the blood serum and used a mass spectrometer to search for substances that could serve as biomarkers for severe disease. As a result, they discovered that the levels of amino acid degradation products differ in the early stages of infection between people with mild cases and those who later develop severe illness.
The metabolites discovered in this study were detected in patient serum within five days of symptom onset, such as fever. Therefore, it is hoped that when patients visit a hospital with symptoms in the early stages of infection, a blood test could predict their risk of developing severe disease.
This research was published online in the British international academic journal Nature Communications on December 20, 2023.
For the full press release, please see below.