Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Methodol. Sep 20, 2022; 12(5): 438-447
Published online Sep 20, 2022. doi: 10.5662/wjm.v12.i5.438
Growth differentiation factor 15 as an emerging novel biomarker in SARS-CoV-2 infection
Deepak Parchwani, Sagar Dholariya, CDS Katoch, Ragini Singh
Deepak Parchwani, Sagar Dholariya, Ragini Singh, Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rajkot 360001, Gujarat, India
CDS Katoch, Department of Pulmonary Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rajkot 360001, Gujarat, India
Author contributions: Parchwani D and Dholariya S contributed equally to this work from the design of study, search and scrutiny of articles, analysis and manuscript writing to proof reading; Katoch CDS designed the research study, scrutiny of articles and manuscript writing; Singh R literature search and analysis; all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors hereby declare that there in no conflict of intrest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2020 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sagar Dholariya, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jamnagar Road, Khandheri, Rajkot 360001, Gujarat, India. drsagar.dholariya@gmail.com
Received: March 5, 2022
Peer-review started: March 5, 2022
First decision: June 16, 2022
Revised: June 29, 2022
Accepted: August 30, 2022
Article in press: August 30, 2022
Published online: September 20, 2022
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Growth differentiation factor (GDF)-15 is a modulator of immune responses and facilitates inflammation-induced tissue tolerance through metabolic adaptation. Experimental studies reveled that GDF-15 promotes virus replication and virus-induced inflammation in the lungs. Thus, GDF-15 may attenuate the antiviral immune response and affect the consequences of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection.

Research motivation

To identify a novel biomarker for the guidance of severity of disease, so as to provide better care and timely management of critical patients.

Research objectives

To investigate the utility of GDF-15 in predicting the risk stratification of SARS-CoV-2.

Research methods

A systematic literature search was carried out in multiple electronic databases: PubMed, Reference Citation Analysis, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Web of Science and Google Scholar using MeSH keywords. The inclusion criteria were research articles of any type written in the English language and published between December 1, 2020 and February 15, 2022. There was no exclusion based on the study outcome and stage or severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Finally, seven of 24 articles were selected for the review after removing the duplicate research literature.

Research results

The primary analysis of this systematic review revealed a high level of GDF-15 in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients and found a significant interaction with the severity of COVID-19. GDF-15 was also found to be positively correlated to predict the disease severity and is superior to other inflammatory biomarkers such as C-reactive protein, D-dimer, procalcitonin and ferritin.

Research conclusions

Serial estimation of GDF-15 levels in hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection may have useful prognostic value and GDF-15 can be considered a clinically prominent sepsis biomarker for screening, risk stratification, and monitoring SARS-CoV-2.

Research perspectives

Additional prospective studies are warranted in this regard to justify GDF-15 as an ideal biomarker which should provide optimization of disease status.