Banca de DEFESA: ELOIZA LOPES DE LIRA

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : ELOIZA LOPES DE LIRA
DATE: 23/05/2023
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: Sala 19
TITLE:

ANALYSIS OF POTENTIAL BIOMARKERS LINKED TO THE CYTOTOXIC IMMUNE RESPONSE IN SARS-COV-2 INFECTED PATIENTS

KEY WORDS:

COVID-19, Markers, Cytotoxic Response, SARS-CoV-2

PAGES: 117
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Imunologia
SUMMARY:

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection leads
to several clinical outcomes, including death. One possible hypothesis for such clinical
variations could be due to the cytotoxic immune responses of the patients. Previous
studies showed that in patients with severe lungs inflammation the number of cytotoxic
T cells is reduced, presenting exhausted phenotypes and impaired functionality.
Therefore, our aim was to investigate the prognostic value of plasmatic and cellular
changes correlated with the cytotoxic response. The study was observational
transversal with 75 human subjects, and approval of the human research ethical
committee (30732120.1.0000.5013). From the total amount, 56 samples were from
patients admitted in the Hospital Universitário Professor Alberto Antunes da
Universidade Federal de Alagoas (HUPAA/UFAL) (COVID-19 group), and 19 donators
(Control group) with paired ages, sex, and commorbities. We conducted hematological
and biochemical blood analysis, plasmatic analysis by Raman spectroscopy and by
flow cytometry bead assay for sFas, sFasL, perforin, granulysin, and granzimes (Gzm)
A and B, and immunephenotyping for lymphocytes and lymphoid cells subpopulations.
The results indicated that COVID-19 group presented several altered hematological
and biochemical parameters which were predictive for severity and mortality. In Raman
spectroscopy we observed a reduction in spectra attributed for aminoacids
(phenylalanine [p ≤ 0.001], proline [p ≤ 0.05], tryptophan [p ≤ 0.01] and tyrosine [p ≤
0.01]) and carotenoids (p ≤ 0.05), whereas an increase in a single spectra attributed to
lipids was observed as well (p ≤ 0.001). The COVID-19 group had increased levels of
GzmA (p =0,04) and GzmB (p =0.01), although the GzmB was the molecule that most
contributed to groups discrimination (21.43 covariance; 0.81 correlation). The GzmB
also was elevated in women (p = 0.01) and elderly (p = 0.01), positively correlating to
patient’s reduced survival (p = 0.03). It was also detected increased amounts of innate
lymphoid cells (ILC)1 and ILC3 (p ≤ 0.05), and reduction of naive and memmory
effector T CD4+ cells, and effector and memmory effector T CD8+ cells (p ≤ 0.01). Our
results indicate that the granzymes are acting in their extracellular functions
corroborating with the pathogeny of the disease, and that they can be employed as
worse prognosis markers for COVID-19.

BANKING MEMBERS:
Presidente - 2151027 - ALEXANDRE URBAN BORBELY
Interno(a) - 1556562 - ABELARDO SILVA JUNIOR
Interno(a) - 1878467 - GUSTAVO GOMES DE ARAUJO
Externo(a) ao Programa - 1130431 - NASSIB BEZERRA BUENO
Externo(a) ao Programa - 1331191 - SABRINA JOANY FELIZARDO NEVES