IP: Dr. Miguel Ángel González-Gay Mantecón

Resumen del proyecto: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has caused the coronavirus disease pandemic of 2019-2020 (COVID-19). This virus can cause severe pneumonia with acute respiratory failure that has resulted in the death of thousands of people worldwide. Patients who are complicated develop severe inflammation mainly mediated by the exaggerated production of proinflammatory cytokines which causes the so-called cytokine storm and the consequent cytokine release syndrome, also known as macrophage activation syndrome (MAS). In this sense, the term MAS-"like" is used to refer to the syndrome associated with infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in these patients. This project will focus on assessing whether patients who had a more severe SARS-CoV-2 virus infection, manifested by the development of a MAS-"like", present polymorphisms in genes involved in the formation and signaling of the inflammasome, a multiprotein complex of the immune response that triggers a strong systemic inflammation, which may influence the worsening and increase in mortality of patients with COVID-19. To achieve this objective, 200 patients who have developed a moderate, severe or critical SARS-CoV-2 virus infection during the COVID-19 pandemic and 200 patients who have developed a mild SARSCoV-2 virus infection in that pandemic will be recruited. Likewise, this project will have biological material from 400 healthy individuals that will be used as a control group. Both patients and controls will evaluate single nucleotide polymorphisms. The results derived from the project will offer important advantages applicable to clinical practice, since they will allow the design of commercial chips or arrays that contain the genetic polymorphisms that predispose patients to develop a severe SARS-CoV-2 virus infection. These chips would be patented as an additional tool available in hospitals for an early identification of those patients who are more likely to suffer from this infection in its most severe form in the next outbreaks of the disease. All this will have an impact on a better management of the disease, increasing the quality and life expectancy of patients, with the consequent decrease in the health and human cost involved in this disease.

Entidad financiadora: Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Valdecilla (IDIVAL)