Session: Session 3

Mass spectrometry-based biomarker discovery to stratify microbial (co-) infections in severe COVID-19 patients

Dominik BIERBAUM¹, Pinkus TOBER-LAU², Stephan KAMRAD³, Johannes HARTL¹, Markus RALSER⁴, Florian KURTH²

¹Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany
²Department of Infectiology, Pulmonology, and Intensive Care Medicine, Charite Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany
³MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
⁴Institute for Biochemistry, Charite Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany

Introdcution:

During the late phase of the coronavirus pandemic, many patients continued to suffer from severe COVID-19 and the underlying reasons remained unclear. Initial research suggested that bacterial coinfections could be a potential factor intensifying the severity.

Methodology:

In this project, we utilized a multi-omics approach to differentiate between monoinfections and coinfections in severe COVID-19 patients by integrating proteomics, metabolomics and clinical data.

Results:

We identified a subset of distinct biomarkers associated with coinfections. One metabolite in particular demonstrated high classification scores. We developed a LC-MS based measurement for this metabolite and we are validating our findings using additional samples from other cohorts to ensure robustness and generalizability.

Conclusion:

This work represents a significant step forward in the identification and understanding of coinfections in severe patients, potentially leading to improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies in managing the disease.