Epigenetic Changes in Long COVID Patients

The goal of this observational study is to improve the understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying long COVID and to identify molecular biomarkers that may support its diagnosis, prognosis, and future precision medicine approaches in adults with long COVID, adults who have fully recovered from COVID-19, and healthy control participants.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

• What molecular, immunological, epigenetic, and microbiome profiles distinguish individuals with long COVID from recovered COVID-19 participants and healthy controls?
• How are viral persistence, immune dysregulation, and alterations in the gut-immune axis associated with the development and clinical manifestations of long COVID?
• Which molecular biomarkers may improve disease diagnosis, patient stratification, and the identification of potential therapeutic targets?

Participants will:

• Undergo clinical evaluation and provide information about their medical history and symptoms.
• Provide biological samples, including blood and, when clinically indicated, intestinal biopsy tissue collected during routine colonoscopy procedures.
• Undergo comprehensive molecular analyses, including immunological, epigenetic, transcriptomic, proteomic, and microbiome profiling.
• Have their clinical and molecular data integrated using advanced computational approaches to identify biological signatures associated with long COVID.

The results of this study may improve the understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying long COVID and support the development of novel biomarkers and future precision medicine approaches for diagnosis, prognosis, patient stratification, and therapeutic target identification.