Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Mar 27;23(7):3673.
doi: 10.3390/ijms23073673.

What Is Currently Known about the Role of CXCL10 in SARS-CoV-2 Infection?

Monika Gudowska-Sawczuk  1 , Barbara Mroczko  1   2
Affiliations
Review

What Is Currently Known about the Role of CXCL10 in SARS-CoV-2 Infection?

Monika Gudowska-Sawczuk et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Dysregulation of the immune response plays an important role in the progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection. A "cytokine storm", which is a phenomenon associated with uncontrolled production of large amounts of cytokines, very often affects patients with COVID-19. Elevated activity of chemotactic cytokines, called chemokines, can lead to serious consequences. CXCL10 has an ability to activate its receptor CXCR3, predominantly expressed on macrophages, T lymphocytes, dendritic cells, natural killer cells, and B cells. So, it has been suggested that the chemokine CXCL10, through CXCR3, is associated with inflammatory diseases and may be involved in the development of COVID-19. Therefore, in this review paper, we focus on the role of CXCL10 overactivity in the pathogenesis of COVID-19. We performed an extensive literature search for our investigation using the MEDLINE/PubMed database. Increased concentrations of CXCL10 were observed in COVID-19. Elevated levels of CXCL10 were reported to be associated with a severe course and disease progression. Published studies revealed that CXCL10 may be a very good predictive biomarker of patient outcome in COVID-19, and that markedly elevated CXCL10 levels are connected with ARDS and neurological complications. It has been observed that an effective treatment for SARS-CoV-2 leads to inhibition of "cytokine storm", as well as reduction of CXCL10 concentrations. It seems that modulation of the CXCL10-CXCR3 axis may be an effective therapeutic target of COVID-19. This review describes the potential role of CXCL10 in the pathogenesis of COVID-19, as well as its potential immune-therapeutic significance. However, future studies should aim to confirm the prognostic, clinical, and therapeutic role of CXCL10 in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Keywords: COVID-19; CXCL10; SARS-CoV-2; chemokine; cytokine; inflammation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
CXCL10 in SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The PRISMA Flow Diagram.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Zhu N., Zhang D., Wang W., Li X., Yang B., Song J., Zhao X., Huang B., Shi W., Lu R., et al. A Novel Coronavirus from Patients with Pneumonia in China, 2019. N. Engl. J. Med. 2020;382:727–733. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001017. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zaman M.S., Sizemore R.C. Diverse Manifestations of COVID-19: Some Suggested Mechanisms. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health. 2021;18:9785. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18189785. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rodebaugh T.L., Frumkin M.R., Reiersen A.M., Lenze E.J., Avidan M.S., Miller J.P., Piccirillo J.F., Zorumski C.F., Mattar C. Acute Symptoms of Mild to Moderate COVID-19 Are Highly Heterogeneous Across Individuals and Over Time. Open Forum Infect. Dis. 2021;8:ofab090. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofab090. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baj J., Karakuła-Juchnowicz H., Teresiński G., Buszewicz G., Ciesielka M., Sitarz E., Forma A., Karakuła K., Flieger W., Portincasa P., et al. COVID-19: Specific and Non-Specific Clinical Manifestations and Symptoms: The Current State of Knowledge. J. Clin. Med. 2020;9:1753. doi: 10.3390/jcm9061753. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nakamichi K., Shen J.Z., Lee C.S., Lee A., Roberts E.A., Simonson P.D., Roychoudhury P., Andriesen J., Randhawa A.K., Mathias P.C., et al. Hospitalization and mortality associated with SARS-CoV-2 viral clades in COVID-19. Sci. Rep. 2021;11:4802. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-82850-9. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources