Decreased circulating dipeptidyl peptidase-4 enzyme activity is prognostic for severe outcomes in COVID-19 inpatients

• Published in: Biomarkers in medicine Vol. 16; no. 5; pp. 317 - 330
• Main Authors: Nádasdi, Ákos, Sinkovits, György, Bobek, Ilona, Lakatos, Botond, Förhécz, Zsolt, Prohászka, Zita Z, Réti, Marienn, Arató, Miklós, Cseh, Gellért, Masszi, Tamás, Merkely, Béla, Ferdinandy, Péter, Vályi-Nagy, István, Prohászka, Zoltán, Firneisz, Gábor
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Future Medicine Ltd 01-04-2022
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Biomarkers - blood; Biomarkers - metabolism; C-Reactive Protein - metabolism; circulating DPP4 activity; COVID-19; COVID-19 - blood; COVID-19 - diagnosis; COVID-19 - therapy; Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 - blood; Dipeptidyl Peptidase 4 - metabolism; disease severity; DPP4; Female; Humans; Inpatients - statistics & numerical data; Interleukin-6 - blood; Interleukin-6 - metabolism; Logistic Models; Male; Middle Aged; mortality; Multivariate Analysis; Prognosis; prognostic biomarker; Retrospective Studies; ROC Curve; SARS-CoV-2; SARS-CoV-2 - physiology; Severity of Illness Index; T2DM; COVID-19; DPP4; T2DM; SARS-CoV-2; mortality; prognostic biomarker; disease severity; circulating DPP4 activity
• ISSN: 1752-0363; 1752-0371
• DOI: 10.2217/bmm-2021-0717

To investigate the serum circulating DPP4 activity in patients with COVID-19 disease.
Serum samples from 102 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and 43 post-COVID-19 plasma donors and 39 SARS-CoV-2 naive controls and their medical data were used. Circulating DPP4 activities according to different COVID-19 disease peak severity (WHO) groups at sampling and at peak were assessed.
A significant decrease (p < 0.0001) in serum DPP4 activity was found in study groups of higher disease severity. When the circulating DPP4 activity was assessed as a prognostic marker, the logistic regression (p = 0.0023) indicated that the enzyme activity is a predictor of mortality (median 9.5 days before death) with receiver operating characteristic area under the curves of 73.33% (p
 < 0.0001) as single predictor and 83.45% (p
 < 0.0001) in combination with age among hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
Decreased circulating DPP4 activity is associated with severe COVID-19 disease and is a strong prognostic biomarker of mortality.