High prevalence of SARS-Coronavirus-2 in patients with inflammatory bowel disease and the role of soluble angiotensin converting Enzyme2

Abstract

Context: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were found to have the higher intestinal expression of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme2 (ACE2) that could consequently increase susceptibility to COVID-19 infection.

Objective: This study reports the outcomes of COVID-19 infection in a large cohort of IBD patients. We compare levels of serum ACE and IFN-α between COVID19 patients with and without IBD. We performed a cross-sectional retrospective multicenter study.

Methods: We enrolled patients with IBD screened for SARS-COV-2 in six medical centres in Iran from June to November 2020. The blood samples were drawn to measure COVID-19 IgM and IgG, and serum levels of sACE2, sACE1, and interferon-α, regardless of suspicious symptoms have done the molecular test.

Results: A total of 534 IBD patients were included in the study. Of these, 109 (20.0%) cases had detectable IgG and IgM against SARS-CoV-2. sACE2 levels were higher in IBD patients than controls, whereas ACE1and IFN-α levels were similar among groups.

Keywords:

• Inflammatory Bowel disease
• SARS-CoV2
• sACE

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank sampling groups of the Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran for their contribution to the data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this article.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful for the funding of this study from the CinnaGen Company. CinnaGen manufactures biosimilar adalimumab under the brand name CinnoRA in Iran.