The development of anticyclic citrullinated peptide (anti‐CCP) antibody following severe COVID‐19

• Published in: Immunity, Inflammation and Disease Vol. 12; no. 5; pp. e1276 - n/a
• Main Authors: Roghani, Seyed Askar, Dastbaz, Mohammad, Lotfi, Ramin, Shamsi, Afsaneh, Abdan, Zahra, Rostampour, Rezvan, Soleymani, Bijan, Zamanian, Mohammad Hossein, Soufivand, Parviz, Pournazari, Mehran, Taghadosi, Mahdi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.05.2024; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Anti-Citrullinated Protein Antibodies - blood; Anti-Citrullinated Protein Antibodies - immunology; Antibodies; Antibodies, Antinuclear - blood; Antibodies, Antinuclear - immunology; anti‐CCP; autoantibodies (AABs); Autoantibodies - blood; Autoantibodies - immunology; Autoimmune diseases; Autoimmune Diseases - blood; Autoimmune Diseases - immunology; autoimmunity; Coronaviruses; Correlation analysis; COVID-19; COVID-19 - blood; COVID-19 - immunology; Female; Humans; Immunoglobulins; Lupus; Male; Middle Aged; Neutrophils; Original; Patients; Peptides; Rheumatic diseases; Rheumatic Diseases - blood; Rheumatic Diseases - immunology; Rheumatoid arthritis; SARS-CoV-2 - immunology; SARS‐CoV‐2; Sea level; Severity of Illness Index; Iran; autoantibodies (AABs); COVID‐19; autoimmunity; SARS‐CoV‐2; anti‐CCP
• ISSN: 2050-4527; 2050-4527
• DOI: 10.1002/iid3.1276

Objectives The dysregulated immune response is one of the cardinal features of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19). This study was conducted to clarify the occurrence of autoantibodies (AABs) associated with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARDs) in hospitalized patients with a moderate, severe, and critical form of COVID‐19. Methods The serum samples obtained from 176 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients were investigated in this study, including patients with moderate (N = 90), severe (N = 50), and critical (N = 36) forms of COVID‐19. Also, the serum samples collected from healthy subjects before the COVID‐19 pandemic were used as controls (N = 176). The antinuclear antibodies (ANAs), antidouble‐stranded DNA (anti‐dsDNA), cytoplasmic‐anti neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (c‐ANCA), perinuclear ANCA (p‐ANCA), antiphospholipid antibodies (aPLs), and anticyclic citrullinated peptide (anti‐CCP) occurrence was evaluated using a solid‐phase enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results The results showed that the occurrence of ANAs, anti‐dsDNA, anti‐CCP, c‐ANCA, and p‐ANCA was significantly higher in the COVID‐19 patients compared to serum obtained from healthy subjects (p < .0001, p < .0001, p < .0001, p < .05, and p < .001, respectively). The positive number of anti‐CCP tests increased significantly in severe COVID‐19 compared to the moderate group (p < .01). Conclusion Our study further supports the development of autoantibodies related to systemic autoimmune rheumatologic diseases. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study with a large sample size that reported the occurrence of anti‐CCP in a severe form of COVID‐19.