{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,29]],"date-time":"2026-09-29T15:13:03Z","timestamp":1790694783634,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,5,25]],"date-time":"2022-05-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1653436800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100014419","name":"EIT Health","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["CoViproteHCt #20877"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CoViproteHCt #20877"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100014419","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Corona-Forschungsantr\u00e4ge (Fakult\u00e4t f. Medizin). A.M. was supported by Wilhelm Sander-Stiftung","award":["2018.135.1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2018.135.1"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>COVID-19 has so far affected more than 250 million individuals worldwide, causing more than 5 million deaths. Several risk factors for severe disease have been identified, most of which coincide with advanced age. In younger individuals, severe COVID-19 often occurs in the absence of obvious comorbidities. Guided by the finding of cytomegalovirus (CMV)-specific T cells with some cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 in a COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) patient, we decided to investigate whether CMV seropositivity is associated with severe or critical COVID-19.<\/jats:p>\n                    <jats:p>Herpes simplex virus (HSV) serostatus was investigated as control.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>National German COVID-19 bio-sample and data banks were used to retrospectively analyze the CMV and HSV serostatus of patients who experienced mild (n = 101), moderate (n = 130) or severe to critical (n = 80) disease by IgG serology. We then investigated the relationship between disease severity and herpesvirus serostatus via statistical models.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Non-geriatric patients (&lt; 60 years) with severe COVID-19 were found to have a very high prevalence of CMV-seropositivity, while CMV status distribution in individuals with mild disease was similar to the prevalence in the German population; interestingly, this was not detectable in older patients. Prediction models support the hypothesis that the CMV serostatus, unlike HSV, might be a strong biomarker in identifying younger individuals with a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19, in particular in absence of other co-morbidities.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We identified \u2018CMV-seropositivity\u2019 as a potential novel risk factor for severe COVID-19 in non-geriatric individuals in the studied cohorts. More mechanistic analyses as well as confirmation of similar findings in cohorts representing the currently most relevant SARS-CoV-2 variants should be performed shortly.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0268530","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,5,25]],"date-time":"2022-05-25T13:38:42Z","timestamp":1653485922000},"page":"e0268530","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":34,"title":["CMV seropositivity is a potential novel risk factor for severe COVID-19 in non-geriatric 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