{"doi":"10.3390/v16060950","title":"Inflammatory and Autoimmune Aspects of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C): A Prospective Cohort Study","abstract":"Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) is a potentially life-threatening complication of COVID-19. The pathophysiological mechanisms leading to severe disease are poorly understood. This study leveraged clinical samples from a well-characterized cohort of children hospitalized with COVID-19 or MIS-C to compare immune-mediated biomarkers. Our objective was to identify selected immune molecules that could explain, in part, why certain SARS-CoV-2-infected children developed MIS-C. We hypothesized that type-2 helper T cell-mediated inflammation can elicit autoantibodies, which may account for some of the differences observed between the moderate–severe COVID-19 (COVID+) and MIS-C cohort. We enumerated blood leukocytes and measured levels of selected serum cytokines, chemokines, antibodies to COVID-19 antigens, and autoantibodies in children presenting to an academic medical center in Connecticut, United States. The neutrophil/lymphocyte and eosinophil/lymphocyte ratios were significantly higher in those in the MIS-C versus COVID+ cohort. IgM and IgA, but not IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain were significantly higher in the MIS-C cohort than the COVID+ cohort. The serum levels of certain type-2 cytokines (interleukin (IL)-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-13, and IL-33) were significantly higher in children with MIS-C compared to the COVID+ and SARS-CoV-2-negative cohorts. IgG autoantibodies to brain antigens and pentraxin were higher in children with MIS-C compared to SARS-CoV-19-negative controls, and children with MIS-C had higher levels of IgG anti-contactin-associated protein-like 2 (caspr2) compared to the COVID+ and SARS-CoV-19-negative controls. We speculate that autoimmune responses in certain COVID-19 patients may induce pathophysiological changes that lead to MIS-C. The triggers of autoimmunity and factors accounting for type-2 inflammation require further investigation.","journal":"Viruses","year":2024,"id":442617,"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":8,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9488,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1115106,"name":"Aishwarya Jadhav","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381744,"name":"Tapan Kumar Mondal","orcid":"0000-0003-3082-9680","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":637298,"name":"Kyle Carson","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":561974,"name":"William T. Lee","orcid":"0000-0003-2883-0391","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":758518,"name":"Alexander H. Hogan","orcid":"0000-0001-6545-2145","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":671057,"name":"Katherine W. Herbst","orcid":"0000-0001-8280-7227","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":107724,"name":"Ian C. Michelow","orcid":"0000-0002-8399-480X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":671058,"name":"Michael Brimacombe","orcid":"0000-0002-3276-9071","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":671059,"name":"Juan C. Salazar","orcid":"0000-0003-3881-546X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1256841,"name":"The Connecticut Children’s COVID Collaborative","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367108,"name":"David A. Lawrence","orcid":"0000-0002-8940-9640","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":97,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:01:20.107161Z","pmid":"38932242","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":[]}