Interleukin-8 as a Biomarker for Disease Prognosis of Coronavirus Disease-2019 Patients

• Main Authors: Lili Li, Jie Li, Meiling Gao, Huimin Fan, Yanan Wang, Xin Xu, Chunfeng Chen, Junxiao Liu, Jocelyn Kim, Roghiyh Aliyari, Jicai Zhang, Yujie Jin, Xiaorong Li, Feng Ma, Minxin Shi, Genhong Cheng, Heng Yang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-01
• Series: Frontiers in Immunology
• Subjects: cytokine serum profile; biomarker; coronavirus disease-2019 prognosis; respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; cytokine storm; interleukin-6
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.602395/full

The widespread prevalence of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) which is caused by severe respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, has resulted in a severe global public health emergency. However, there are no sensitive biomarkers to predict the disease prognosis of COVID-19 patients. Here, we have identified interleukin-8 (IL-8) as a biomarker candidate to predict different disease severity and prognosis of COVID-19 patients. While serum IL-6 become obviously elevated in severe COVID-19 patients, serum IL-8 was easily detectible in COVID-19 patients with mild syndromes. Furthermore, lL-8 levels correlated better than IL-6 levels with the overall clinical disease scores at different stages of the same COVID-19 patients. Thus, our studies suggest that IL-6 and IL-8 can be respectively used as biomarkers for severe COVID-19 patients and for COVID-19 disease prognosis.