@article {Gomese202101180, author = {Claudia Gomes and Marisol Zuniga and Kelly A Crotty and Kun Qian and Nubia Catalina Tovar and Lawrence Hsu Lin and Kimon V Argyropoulos and Robert Clancy and Peter Izmirly and Jill Buyon and David C Lee and Maria Fernanda Yasnot-Acosta and Huilin Li and Paolo Cotzia and Ana Rodriguez}, title = {Autoimmune anti-DNA and anti-phosphatidylserine antibodies predict development of severe COVID-19}, volume = {4}, number = {11}, elocation-id = {e202101180}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.26508/lsa.202101180}, publisher = {Life Science Alliance}, abstract = {High levels of autoimmune antibodies are observed in COVID-19 patients but their specific contribution to disease severity and clinical manifestations remains poorly understood. We performed a retrospective study of 115 COVID-19 hospitalized patients with different degrees of severity to analyze the generation of autoimmune antibodies to common antigens: a lysate of erythrocytes, the lipid phosphatidylserine (PS) and DNA. High levels of IgG autoantibodies against erythrocyte lysates were observed in a large percentage (up to 36\%) of patients. Anti-DNA and anti-PS antibodies determined upon hospital admission correlated strongly with later development of severe disease, showing a positive predictive value of 85.7\% and 92.8\%, respectively. Patients with positive values for at least one of the two autoantibodies accounted for 24\% of total severe cases. Statistical analysis identified strong correlations between anti-DNA antibodies and markers of cell injury, coagulation, neutrophil levels and erythrocyte size. Anti-DNA and anti-PS autoantibodies may play an important role in the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and could be developed as predictive biomarkers for disease severity and specific clinical manifestations.}, URL = {https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/4/11/e202101180}, eprint = {https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/4/11/e202101180.full.pdf}, journal = {Life Science Alliance} }