Amino Acid Metabolism in Leukocytes Showing In Vitro IgG Memory from SARS-CoV2-Infected Patients

Abstract

The immune response to infectious diseases is directly influenced by metabolic activities. COVID-19 is a disease that affects the entire body and can significantly impact cellular metabolism. Recent studies have focused their analysis on the potential connections between post-infection stages of SARS-CoV2 and different metabolic pathways. The spike S1 antigen was found to have in vitro IgG antibody memory for PBMCs when obtaining PBMC cultures 60-90 days post infection, and a significant increase in S-adenosyl homocysteine, sarcosine, and arginine was detected by mass spectrometric analysis. The involvement of these metabolites in physiological recovery from viral infections and immune activity is well documented, and they may provide a new and simple method to better comprehend the impact of SARS-CoV2 on leukocytes. Moreover, there was a significant change in the metabolism of the tryptophan and urea cycle pathways in leukocytes with IgG memory. With these data, together with results from the literature, it seems that leukocyte metabolism is reprogrammed after viral pathogenesis by activating certain amino acid pathways, which may be related to protective immunity against SARS-CoV2.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV2; cell ELISA; mass spectrometry; metabolomics.

Figure 1

Differentially regulated signaling pathways in PBMCs exhibiting IgG antibody memory against SARS-CoV2. The green box shows the methionine and arginine metabolism pathways that were upregulated after infection, whereas the red box shows the tryptophan pathway that was downregulated in IgGm+ samples. Taken together, these pathways were involved in physiological recovery from viral infection and immune activity [20,22]. S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet); S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine (AdoHcy); indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1); aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR).