Tryptophan Metabolism ‘Hub’ Gene Expression Associates with Increased Inflammation and Severe Disease Outcomes in COVID-19 Infection and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Abstract

The epithelial barrier’s primary role is to protect against entry of foreign and pathogenic elements. Both COVID-19 and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) show commonalities in symptoms and treatment with sensitization of the epithelial barrier inviting an immune response. In this study we use a multi-omics strategy to identify a common signature of immune disease that may be able to predict for more severe patient outcomes. Global proteomic approaches were applied to transcriptome and proteome. Further semi- and relative- quantitative targeted mass spectrometry methods were developed to substantiate the proteomic and metabolomics changes in nasal swabs from healthy, COVID-19 (24 h and 3 weeks post infection); serums from Crohn’s disease patients (scored for epithelial leak), terminal ileum tissue biopsies (patient matched inflamed and non-inflamed regions, and controls). We found that the tryptophan/kynurenine metabolism pathway is a ‘hub’ regulator of canonical and non-canonical transcription, macrophage release of cytokines and significant changes in the immune and metabolic status with increasing severity and disease course. Significantly modified pathways include stress response regulator EIF2 signaling (p = 1 × 10−3); energy metabolism, KYNU (p = 4 × 10−4), WARS (p = 1 × 10−7); inflammation, and IDO activity (p = 1 × 10−6). Heightened levels of PARP1, WARS and KYNU are predictive at the acute stage of infection for resilience, while in contrast, levels remained high and are predictive of persistent and more severe outcomes in COVID disease. Generation of a targeted marker profile showed these changes in immune disease underlay resolution of epithelial barrier function and have the potential to define disease trajectory and more severe patient outcomes.