{"doi":"10.1093/infdis/jiab167","title":"Excessive Matrix Metalloproteinase-1 and Hyperactivation of Endothelial Cells Occurred in COVID-19 Patients and Were Associated With the Severity of COVID-19","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Systemic vascular injury occurs in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. METHODS: To clarify the role of inflammatory factors in COVID-19 vascular injury, we used a multiplex immunoassay to profile 65 inflammatory cytokines/chemokines/growth factors in plasma samples from 24 hospitalized (severe/critical) COVID-19 patients, 14 mild/moderate cases, and 13 healthy controls (HCs). RESULTS: COVID-19 patients had significantly higher plasma levels of 20 analytes than HCs. Surprisingly, only 1 cytokine, macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), was among these altered analytes, while the rest were chemokines/growth factors. Additionally, only matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) were significantly elevated in hospitalized COVID-19 patients when compared to mild/moderate cases. We further studied MMP-1 enzymatic activity and multiple endothelial cell (EC) activation markers (soluble forms of CD146, intercellular adhesion molecule 1 [ICAM-1], and vascular cell adhesion molecule 1 [VCAM-1]) and found that they were highly dysregulated in COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 patients have a unique inflammatory profile, and excessive MMP-1 and hyperactivation of ECs are associated with the severity of COVID-19.","journal":"The Journal of Infectious Diseases","year":2021,"id":150991,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":87,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9586,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":618866,"name":"Wei Li","orcid":"0000-0002-4264-1864","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437887,"name":"Ryan F. Relich","orcid":"0000-0001-5889-1190","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":643392,"name":"Patrick M. Russell","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":523417,"name":"Shanxiang Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-8525-7021","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":643393,"name":"Michelle K. Zimmerman","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":404759,"name":"Qigui Yu","orcid":"0000-0002-3490-3764","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":643391,"name":"Fahim Syed","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":52,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:43:11.293086Z","pmid":"33885811","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}