COVID-19 Can Make Patients' Immune Systems Attack Their Own Bodies, Study Shows - ScienceAlert

As an immunologist within the Lowance Center for Human Immunology at Emory University, I have been investigating the immune response responsible for producing antibodies in COVID-19.

Ignacio Sanz, our group has previously investigated immune responses contributing to autoantibody production in autoimmune disorders like lupus, and more recently in severe cases in COVID-19.

However, while we were able to characterize the response in COVID-19 patients as autoimmunelike, we could not confirm the production of autoantibodies hidden within their antiviral responses.

Although patients with severe disease clearly display autoantibody responses, the data don't tell us to what extent these autoantibodies contribute to the most severe symptoms of COVID-19.

It could be that severe viral illness routinely results in the production of autoantibodies with little consequence; this could just be the first time we're seeing it.

Maybe these self-targeted antibody responses do indeed contribute to disease severity, helping explain the delayed onset of severe symptoms in some patients that may correlate with antibody production.

It is also possible that these responses are not short-lived, outlasting the infection and contributing to ongoing symptoms now experienced by a growing number of "long-hauler" COVID-19 patients.

Our study shows that by testing for just these two autoantibodies, and the inflammatory marker c-reactive protein, we may be able to identify patients more likely to be experiencing potentially dangerous immune responses that might benefit from more aggressive immune modulation.

Further, autoreactivity testing might help identify patients who might benefit from rheumotological follow-up to monitor recovery, and help us understand whether some cases of "long-hauler" COVID-19 might be related to persisting autoantibodies.