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Review
. 2021;1(4):143-150.
doi: 10.1007/s43657-021-00020-3. Epub 2021 Jul 22.

Molecular Phenomic Approaches to Deconvolving the Systemic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome

Jeremy K Nicholson  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Molecular Phenomic Approaches to Deconvolving the Systemic Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome

Jeremy K Nicholson. Phenomics. 2021.

Abstract

SARS COV-2 infection causes acute and frequently severe respiratory disease with associated multi-organ damage and systemic disturbances in many biochemical pathways. Metabolic phenotyping provides deep insights into the complex immunopathological problems that drive the resulting COVID-19 disease and is also a source of novel metrics for assessing patient recovery. A multiplatform metabolic phenotyping approach to studying the pathology and systemic metabolic sequelae of COVID-19 is considered here, together with a framework for assessing post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS) that is a major long-term health consequence for many patients. The sudden emergence of the disease presents a biological discovery challenge as we try to understand the pathological mechanisms of the disease and develop effective mitigation strategies. This requires technologies to measure objectively the extent and sub-phenotypes of the disease at the molecular level. Spectroscopic methods can reveal metabolic sub-phenotypes and new biomarkers that can be monitored during the acute disease phase and beyond. This approach is scalable and translatable to other pathologies and provides as an exemplar strategy for the investigation of other emergent zoonotic diseases with complex immunological drivers, multi-system involvements and diverse persistent symptoms.

Keywords: COVID-19; Metabolic Phenoconversion; Phenoreversion; Post-acute COVID-19 Syndrome (PACS); SARS COV-2; Spectroscopy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of InterestsThe author declares no competing financial interests. JK is the associate editor of Phenomics, and he was not involved in reviewing this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A framework for understanding the natural history of an emergent zoonotic disease using metabotyping: schematic illustration of the collective COVID-19 patient journey from health to disease using a metabolic systems framework to assess disease progression and recovery in relation to associated studies that enable model cross-validation through published literature and sequential analysis of multiple disease cohort samples. The population phenomics box illustrates the collection of different metabolic signatures from population subgroups some of which may have different disease risks
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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