Circulating Ubiquitous RNA, A Highly Predictive and Prognostic Biomarker in Hospitalized Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Patients

Abstract

Background: Approximately 15-30% of hospitalized coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients develop acute respiratory distress syndrome, systemic tissue injury, and/or multi-organ failure leading to death in around 45% of cases. There is a clear need for biomarkers that quantify tissue injury, predict clinical outcomes, and guide the clinical management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Methods: We herein report the quantification by droplet-based digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNAemia and the plasmatic release of a ubiquitous human intracellular marker, the ribonuclease P (RNase P) in order to evaluate tissue injury and cell lysis in the plasma of 139 COVID-19 hospitalized patients at admission. Results: We confirmed that SARS-CoV-2 RNAemia was associated with clinical severity of COVID-19 patients. In addition, we showed that plasmatic RNase P RNAemia at admission was also highly correlated with disease severity (P