Autoantibodies against type I interferons continue to confer a higher risk of severe COVID-19 in fully vaccinated population

ABOUT THE PROJECT

In addition to advanced age, male gender and comorbidities, inherited genetic variants, as well as neutralizing autoantibodies against type I interferon (N-Ab anti-IFN-I) have been postulated to confer individual susceptibility to severe COVID-19 and worse outcomes. Furthermore, a worrying percentage of fully vaccinated patients continue to require hospitalization due to COVID-19. This project aims to assess the usefulness of N-Ab anti-IFN-I to predict which hospitalized patients will develop life-threatening COVID-19, and if these patients with N-Ab anti-IFN-I remain at risk of critical COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. N-Ab anti-IFN-I will be determined in all patients admitted to Bellvitge Universtity Hospital (BUH)-IDIBELL with available blood samples collected during the fifth epidemic wave in Catalonia (March-September 2021). The study population will include both fully vaccinated patients and those who were not. We expect that the incidence of N-Ab anti IFN-I in patients with COVID-19, either fully-vaccinated or not, will be significantly higher in those patients with severe COVID-19 when compared with general population. Fully-vaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization will present lower risk to transit into the most severe stages of the disease, also in those with patients with N-Ab anti-IFN-Is.