{"doi":"10.1101/2020.07.22.202275","title":"Transcriptional response modules characterise IL-1β and IL-6 activity in COVID-19","abstract":"Summary Dysregulated IL-1β and IL-6 responses have been implicated in the pathogenesis of severe Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Innovative approaches for evaluating the biological activity of these cytokines in vivo are urgently needed to complement clinical trials of therapeutic targeting of IL-1β and IL-6 in COVID-19. We show that the expression of IL-1β or IL-6 inducible transcriptional signatures (modules) reflects the bioactivity of these cytokines in immunopathology modelled by juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and rheumatoid arthritis. In COVID-19, elevated expression of IL-1β and IL-6 response modules, but not the cytokine transcripts themselves, is a feature of infection in the nasopharynx and blood, but is not associated with severity of COVID-19 disease, length of stay or mortality. We propose that IL-1β and IL-6 transcriptional response modules provide a dynamic readout of functional cytokine activity in vivo , aiding quantification of the biological effects of immunomodulatory therapies in COVID-19.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2020,"id":127095,"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":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9555,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":227777,"name":"Cem Meydan","orcid":"0000-0002-0663-6216","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231222,"name":"Jacob Kim","orcid":"0000-0002-9306-4446","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":227778,"name":"Jonathan Foox","orcid":"0000-0002-5705-3985","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":231221,"name":"Daniel Butler","orcid":"0000-0002-3687-8419","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":36370,"name":"Christopher E. Mason","orcid":"0000-0002-1850-1642","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":73417,"name":"Sagi Shapira","orcid":"0000-0002-5425-3682","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1487,"name":"Mahdad Noursadeghi","orcid":"0000-0002-4774-0853","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":575579,"name":"Gabriele Pollara","orcid":"0000-0001-5772-0322","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":575578,"name":"Lucy Bell","orcid":"0000-0002-1762-7294","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:30.930746Z","pmid":"33299992","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":[]}