Assessment of Serum Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1 and Chemerin Levels as Potential Markers of Severity in COVID-19 Patients

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus infection (COVID-19) the year 2019 is linked to systemic inflammation Adipokine activity has a wide spectrum of effects on infection pathogenesis. Many elements associated with this condition, such as inflammation, platelet activation, and endothelial dysfunction, may make patients more susceptible to venous or arterial thrombosis. Hypoxia is also a direct result of the lung damage found in COVID-19. Chemerin is a dipokine that has inflammatory and metabolic functions. Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1 (HIF-1) is a protein that regulates oxygen homeostasis in the body. Objective: Our study focused on two indicators (Chemerin, and Hypoxia- inducible factor-1) in COVID-19 in the hopes of demonstrating biomarkers linked to illness severity. Materials and methods: This is a case-control study in which (COVID-19) patients were recruited from the Intensive Care Unit ICU department of the AL-Amal Hospital in AL-Najaf City, Iraq, before receiving any treatment, and compared to seemingly healthy volunteers as the control group. Mild/moderate, severe, and critically sick individuals were separated into three categories. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit was used to evaluate blood chemerin and HIF-1 levels in all patient and control groups. COVID-19 participants' clinical symptoms, laboratory test findings, and outcomes were studied retrospectively. Results: COVID-19 patients had significantly higher levels of HIF-1 and chemerin than healthy volunteers (2.1 0.48 and 244.3 153.97; P 0.001 vs. 1.36 0.49 and 195.03 153.97; P=0.015, respectively). Critically illnes patients had considerably greater serum chemerin and HIF-1 levels than healthy individuals (P 0.0001). However, there was no changes in HIF-1 levels between the mild/moderate patients and the healthy group. Chemerin and HIF-1 levels were positively correlated with ferritin, d-dimer, and NLR levels. Conclusion: Levels of Chemerin and HIF-1 in COVID-19 patients are early indicators of the severity disease and have been linked to the risk of mortality in patients.