a comparative study on proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-17a and interleukin-17f expressions in whole blood of patients with covid-19

Background and objectives: coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19), due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2), has expanded rapidly to all over the world. interleukin-17 is one of the inflammatory cytokines which is highly expressed in the blood of individuals with covid-19. our aim in the present survey was to assess the mrna expression levels of cytokine il-17a, il-17f and tnf-α in the blood of covid-19 patients compared with healthy control individuals.materials and methods: a total of 69 patients including 32 mild patients, 20 severe and 17 asymptomatic patients in comparison with 25 healthy controls were evaluated. to measure the expression profile of il-17a and il-17f in whole blood, quantitative pcr was used.results: asymptomatic, mild, and severe sars-cov-2 infections were found to have significantly higher levels of il-17a and il-17f mrnas than the healthy group (fold change il-17a: 3.778; p= 0.002, 4.003; p= 0.001, 2.608; p= 0.0001 respectively, fold change il-17f: 2.967; p= 0.003, 3.819; p= 0.001, 2.617; p= 0.0012 respectively). tnf-α mrna expression was also measured, which shows an approximately similar increase compared to il-17 (fold change: 2.726; p= 0.002, 2.383; p= 0.001, 2.631; p= 0.001, respectively).conclusion: sars-cov-2 infection severity was associated with blood levels of il-17a and il-17f mrna.