Epigenetics may characterize asymptomatic COVID-19 infection

Abstract

RT-PCR is the foremost clinical test for diagnosis of COVID-19. Unfortunately, PCR-based testing has limitations and may not result in a positive test early in the course of infection before symptoms develop. Enveloped RNA viruses, such as coronaviruses, alter peripheral blood methylation and DNA methylation signatures may characterize asymptomatic versus symptomatic infection. We used Illumina’s Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip array to profile peripheral blood samples from 164 patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR, of whom 8 had no symptoms. Epigenome-wide association analysis identified 10 methylation sites associated with infection and a quantile–quantile plot showed little inflation. These preliminary results suggest that differences in methylation patterns may distinguish asymptomatic from symptomatic infection.

DNA methylation in long COVID

“…While most studies on DNAm of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection to date have focused on the severe stage of the infection, compared to uninfected control subjects, studies of mild or asymptomatic infections may have quite different epigenetic profiles. One EWAS examined as cases those persons who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR but had no symptoms compared to controls who were COVID-19 symptomatic patients; a particular DNAm profile in infected individuals was associated with an absence of symptoms (21). A dose-response relationship may exist between the severity of symptoms and the magnitude of dysregulation in the epigenetic profile in SARS-CoV-2 infection.…”

Host’s DNA methylation alterations accompanying COVID-19 infection: a review article

“…2). These studies have come out with interesting findings regarding identifying COVID-19 asymptomatic patients and predicting the different clinical outcomes of the diseases (Arnold et al, 2022). As detecting asymptomatic COVID-19 infections is one of the mysteries of the COVID-19 pandemic, genome wide DNA methylation profiling via assessing the global genome CpGs variations has shown its utility in distinguishing asymptomatic from those symptomatic patients and healthy uninfected individuals as well.…”

“…The main findings of almost all of the published genome-wide-DNA methylation studies are summarized in the below table (Table 2). Distinct differentially DNAm profile of severe COVID-19 marked by increased methylation of IFN-related pathways and decrease methylation of inflammatory-pathways-related genes (Arnold et al, 2022).…”

“…DM patterns discriminate asymptomatic from symptomatic COVID-19 infection. DNA methylation of genes includingbut not limited to -FBXO16, PSD3, and RAE1 in asymptomatic patients compared to symptomatic patients (Arnold et al, 2022). COVID19-recuperation cases compared to uninfected individuals (Sweden).…”