GPCR auto-antibodies + Severity of neurological long-COVID symptoms correlates with increased level of autoantibodies targeting vasoregulatory and autonomic nervous system receptors

General
1

Seibert et al. found elevated levels of GPCR auto-antibodies correlated to “intensity of neurological disorders including psychomotor speed, visual search, attention, and fatigue”.

The literature on auto-antibodies in Long COVID (and post vac) has been conflicting. Here are the papers which cast some doubt on the auto-antibody theory:

  • The Yale teams using the REAP auto-antibody panel did not find abnormal levels of auto-antibodies in Long COVID or post-vax myocarditis patients. (Twitter thread; links to 2 papers in the Long Haul Wiki link below)
  • A paper by Hall and colleagues found that Celltrend’s ELISA test was not useful in separating POTS patients from healthy controls. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059971

See Etiology - Long Haul Wiki for links to the papers. I didn’t have time to dig up information on a Long COVID auto-antibody study where the researchers didn’t publish their results.

And for the other side of the debate… there are also studies which suggest that auto-antibodies are involved.

Prevalence of autoimmune conditions

For both Long COVID and post vaccination syndrome, new-onset autoimmune diagnoses are surprisingly high.

Treatments for auto-immunity

The auto-immunity theories would predict that certain treatments work well. Here is some data on many of those treatments.

Review post on how people have recovered from autoimmune disease

People have recovered from autoimmune disease! However, response rates are often low. Some of those treatments (e.g. carnivore diet) don’t work as well in long haulers.

BC007

Wallukat’s company Berlin Cures is working on this. Some patients got this drug custom-made for them because they’re a little crazy. Anecdotes from them suggest that BC007 is not the answer for Long COVID, though I haven’t spent much time looking into it.

IVIG

Doesn’t seem to work, but the sample size could be bigger. There’s also a smidge of data on PLEX.

Corticosteroids

Data in the middle of this post. Corticosteroids were popular and not a single person seems to have recovered on them.

The Siebert et al. paper

Severity of neurological long-COVID symptoms correlates with increased level of autoantibodies targeting vasoregulatory and autonomic nervous system receptors

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1568997223001799

2

Here’s another auto-antibody study.

Results : In this group, serological tests showed that, in addition to positivity for anti-spike protein antibodies, a high percentage of subjects were positive for antibodies against G protein-coupled receptors and molecules involved in the response to SARS-CoV-2. In a panel of 16 autoantibodies tested, a few were positively associated with some of the symptoms reported by patients:
anti-ATR1 with lymphadenopathy and/or tonsillitis;
anti-ACE2 with skin symptoms such as ecchymosis, skin oedema, and rash;
anti-MAS1 with widespread burning sensation;
and anti-STAB1 with skin oedema and rash.
Anti-ADRA2A were negatively associated with memory loss and/or mental fog. ACE2 correlated with the serum levels of anti-S antibodies, supporting the hypothesis of an anti-idiotype mechanism in the immunopathogenesis of PACVS.
Conclusions : This exploratory analysis suggests that the levels of autoantibodies directed against ACE2, and probably also MAS1 and STAB1, may serve as biomarkers for PACVS.