UCC gut bacteria study could help identify high-risk Covid-19 patients
Professors Liam O’Mahony and Paul O’Toole, both Principal Investigators at APC Microbiome Ireland, SFI Research Centre and Professors at University College Cork have co-authored a new international research paper which adds another piece to the jigsaw puzzle that is Covid-19 research.
A new Cork research study could be the key to identifying patients at high risk from Covid-19.
The study, conducted by APC Microbiome Ireland at University Cllege Cork (UCC), shows that inflammatory responses and metabolic dysfunction is exaggerated in patients with a specific kind of microbiota – the microorganisms living inside a person.
Such people are less likely to survive a Covid-19 infection, the research found.
In practice, the research could mean that high-risk patients could be identified earlier through profiling of the organisms within their body, and could be afforded greater protection from the virus via targeted treatment using probiotics.
The study, which involved 172 hospitalised Covid patients in Cork and Switzerland, shows that the microbes within each individual are “intimately connected with immune and metabolic health”, according to Professor Liam O’Mahony, one of the principal investigators on the study.
“We now need to investigate how to positively influence these connections before a person becomes infected to help reduce risk of severe outcomes to infection,” he said.
His colleague and fellow investigator Professor Paul Ross said the research adds “another piece to the jigsaw puzzle that is Covid-19 research”.
“It is brilliant to see that this research has delivered such valuable and tangible scientific results,” Professor Ross said.
Professor Philip Nolan, formerly the head of modelling with NPHET and now general director with Science Foundation Ireland, APC’s sponsor, said that the research findings provide “new learnings into Covid-19" and demonstrated “the continued important role of research in addressing the pandemic”.
The study itself identified distinct cell characteristics among those patients who succumbed to the virus, versus those with severe, though non-fatal, symptoms and those who had a mild or moderate form of the disease and had subsequently recovered.
It noted that while certain factors are associated with heightened susceptibility to severe disease from Covid-19 – such as age, male gender, and conditions like obesity and diabetes – nevertheless the microorganisms underpinning differing kinds of Covid-19 reaction are “poorly understood”.
The research found that those with mild Covid-19 followed distinct patterns – they were younger, more likely to be female, less frequently obese, and required fewer medications.
However, those who died from the disease and those who suffered severe illness had no such distinguishing factors.
By contrast, those who died displayed distinctly different levels of 8 separate immune mediators – proteins produced inside the body in response to a specific stimulus – compared with people who survived the infection.
While the study’s findings are particularly interesting in terms of identifying people at heightened risk of a severe infection, they can likewise serve to highlight the role of the microorganisms living in everyone in terms of modifying their immune responses to Covid and other diseases.
“This study has great significance in the progress to provide solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Professor John Cryan, vice president for research and innovation at UCC, said.
“Vital work is taking place at APC laboratories here in UCC,” he said, adding that research is “making a real difference to understanding how to overcome” the virus.
APC’s research into the microbiota present in humans is not limited to Covid-19. The centre, first formed in 2003, has recently carried out studies into the risk of disease from colon cancer related to the microbiota, along with research into how those organisms can be ‘mined’ for new drugs, such as so-called smart antibiotics.
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