Identification of early biomarkers of the response to corticosteroid therapy in COVID-19 patients. – CortiCoV

SARS-CoV-2 is the human coronavirus that caused the pandemic that began in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019. This virus is the source of a contagious respiratory pathology known as COVID-19. The study of the first patients infected with severe forms of COVID-19 revealed an intense inflammatory response of the host, called cytokine storm characterized by an increased levels of cytokines such as IL-1beta whose secretion is controlled by protein complexes called inflammasomes. We have developed a test to predict the course of the disease based on the analysis of the activation state of the NLRP3 inflammasome of myeloid cells in the blood. Here we propose to use this assay to determine if these parameters can allow to differentiate good and bad responders to the corticosteroid therapy and to use the analysis of myeloid cells of these COVID-19 patients to identify new biomarkers