Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Chronic Fatigue and Dis-Autonomy following COVID-19 Vaccination is Distinguished from Normal Vaccination Response by Altered Blood Markers

Version 1 : Received: 29 August 2023 / Approved: 30 August 2023 / Online: 4 September 2023 (07:14:41 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Semmler, A.; Mundorf, A.K.; Kuechler, A.S.; Schulze-Bosse, K.; Heidecke, H.; Schulze-Forster, K.; Schott, M.; Uhrberg, M.; Weinhold, S.; Lackner, K.J.; Pawlitzki, M.; Meuth, S.G.; Boege, F.; Ruhrländer, J. Chronic Fatigue and Dysautonomia following COVID-19 Vaccination Is Distinguished from Normal Vaccination Response by Altered Blood Markers. Vaccines 2023, 11, 1642. Semmler, A.; Mundorf, A.K.; Kuechler, A.S.; Schulze-Bosse, K.; Heidecke, H.; Schulze-Forster, K.; Schott, M.; Uhrberg, M.; Weinhold, S.; Lackner, K.J.; Pawlitzki, M.; Meuth, S.G.; Boege, F.; Ruhrländer, J. Chronic Fatigue and Dysautonomia following COVID-19 Vaccination Is Distinguished from Normal Vaccination Response by Altered Blood Markers. Vaccines 2023, 11, 1642.

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination can entail chronic fatigue/dis-autonomy tentatively termed post-acute COVID-19 vaccination syndrome (PACVS). We explored receptor autoantibodies and interleukin-6 (IL-6) as somatic correlates of PACVS. Blood markers determined before and six months after first-time SARS-CoV-2-vaccination of healthy controls (N = 89, 71 females, mean/ median age 39/ 49 years) were compared with corresponding values of PACVS-affected persons (N= 191, 159 females, mean/median age: 40/39 years) exhibiting chronic fatigue/dis-autonomy (≥ three symptoms for ≥ five months after last SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccination) not due to SARS-CoV-2 infection and/or confounding diseases/medications. Normal vaccination response encompassed decreases of 11 receptor-antibodies (by 25 - 50 %, p < 0.0001), increases in two receptor-antibodies (by 15 - 25 %, p < 0.0001) and normal IL-6. In PACVS, serological vaccination-response appeared significantly (p < 0.0001) altered, allowing discrimination from normal post-vaccination state (sensitivity = 90%, p &lt; 0.0001) by increased angiotensin II type 1 receptor antibodies (cut-off ≤ 10.7 U/ml, ROC-AUC = 0.824 ± 0.027), decreased alpha-2B adrenergic receptor antibodies (cut-off ≥ 25.2 U/ml, ROC-AUC = 0.828 ± 0.025) and increased IL-6 (cut-off ≤ 2.3 pg/ml, ROC-AUC = 0.850 ± 0.022). PACVS is thus indicated as a somatic syndrome delineated/detectable by diagnostic blood markers

Keywords

Post-Acute COVID-19 Vaccination Syndrome; PACVS, G-protein-coupled receptor; receptor antibody; interleukin-6; dis-autonomy; chronic fatigue.

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Neurology

Comments (2)

Comment 1
Received: 5 September 2023
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment: On the one hand, congratulations, a really nice result that there is now a possible indicator to diagnose a subset of postvac patients. These patients might get help faster this way.

BUT

On the other hand, in my opinion, there is currently to little known about the overall affected diverse deregulated pathways to rule out other parameters that may be affected as well in other subgroups with different symptoms. Therefore, I would remove the sentence "However, the proposed laboratory diagnostic can act as a stringent rule-out criterion allowing future PACVS-studies to focus on the probable cases."
I would not reduce possible parameters at such early a timepoint.
Maybe a more cautious formulation would be better. Something along the line that one can at least already identify a subgroup with these parameters. Restricting laboratory diagnostics too early, when the causes auf the symptomatics are still unclear, can become a disadvantage for diagnostics in the long term.
Especially as long as we don’t know in which cellular RNAs (tRNA, mRNA, rRNA) the N1-Methylpseudouridine of the vaccine might end up, as there is no data on the biodistribution of the nucleotide available at this time point.

“We believe that one objective of future studies should be to draw a clearer and more differentiated clinical picture of PACVS and to use the suggested biomarker signature for patient stratification in a prospective study setting. “
Also here, I would beg to differ, as at the moment I think it would be better to go the opposite way and use a broad omix-like approach, to identify further possible markers and to get a broader overview on future possible makers.
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Comment 2
Received: 6 September 2023
Commenter:
Commenter's Conflict of Interests: I am one of the author
Comment: Author's reply to comment No. 1: We are most grateful for these thoughtful comments and will incorporate the suggested alterations into a future version of the manucript (if given the chance).
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