Cardiovascular and kidney diseases are positively associated with neuroinflammation and reduced brain-derived neurotrophic factor in patients with severe COVID-19

Even though respiratory dysfunctions are the primary symptom associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection, cerebrovascular events, and neurological symptoms are described in many patients. However, the connection between the neuroimmune profile and the lung's inflammatory condition during COVID-19 and its association with the neurological symptoms reported by COVID-19 patients still needs further exploration. The present study characterizes the SARS-CoV-2 infectivity profile in postmortem nervous and lung tissue samples of patients who died due to severe COVID-19, and the pro-inflammatory factors present in both nervous and lung tissue samples, via a proteomic profiling array. Additionally, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) levels and intracellular pathways related to neuroplasticity/neuroprotection were assessed in the samples. Out of the 16 samples analyzed, all samples but 1 were positive for the viral genome (genes E or N2, but only 3.9% presented E and N2) in the olfactory brain pathway. The E or N2 gene were also detected in all lung samples, with 43.7% of the samples being positive for the E and N2 genes. In the E/N2 positive brain samples, the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 co-localized with TUJ-1+ (neuron-specific class III beta-tubulin) and GFAP+ (glial fibrillary acidic protein) astrocytes. IL-6, but not IL-10, expression was markedly higher in most nervous tissue samples compared to the lung specimens. While intracellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), interleukin-8 (IL-8), macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 (PAI-1) were increased in lung samples from SARS-Cov-2 patients, only MIF and IL-18 were detected in nervous tissue samples. Correlation analysis suggested that high levels of IL-6 are followed by increased levels of IL-10 in the brain, but not in lung samples. Our analysis also demonstrated that the presence of comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and hypothyroidism, is associated with neuroinflammation, while chronic kidney conditions predict the presence of neurological symptoms, which correlate with lower levels of BDNF in the brain samples. Our results corroborate the hypothesis that a pro-inflammatory state might further impair neural homeostasis and induce brain abnormalities found in COVID-19 patients.