Comprehensive assessment and diagnostic value of the parameters of the immune system associated with susceptibility and resistance to COVID-19

Shchurok I.N., Ishchenko O.V., Semenova I.V., Generalov S.I., Chernokov O.I.

Vitebsk State Medical University, Vitebsk, Belarus

Innate immunity, as the first line of defense of the immune system, plays a key role in protection against the Sars-CoV2 coronavirus. The study of innate antiviral immunity is fundamental in prediction the severity and prognosis of the infectious disease. The present study is aimed at the evaluation of similarities and differences in the levels of immunoglobulins, cytokines (interferons alpha and gamma), antimicrobial peptides (defensin alfa, defensin beta), changes during stimulation of neutrophils with viral antigens in patients with different clinical phenotypes of COVID-19. The aim of the study was to identify the most common combinations of symptoms and identify individual clinical phenotypes of COVID-19, as well as to study the immunophenotypic features of each clinical group outside the manifestation of the infection itself. Our studies have determined the role of interferon alfa, gamma, defensin alfa, and beta in protection against Sars-CoV2 infection and established that baseline innate immunity parameters outside of contact with infection determine the outcome of the disease and can be used to predict the disease. The development of the course of the disease and the severity of the disease are differently programmed by the innate cells of the immune system in mild and severe cases of the disease, which is also accompanied by similar differences in the adaptive immune response to Sars-CoV2.