Fig. 8
Long-COVID is potentially associated with cardiometabolic damage caused by vasculo-proliferative events. A Heatmaps reflect the levels of the most significant cardio-metabolic markers (per OLINK panels I and II) that were changed in Long-COVID patients. Markers have been curated by OLINK. Values have been hierarchically clustered based on Person correlation algorithms. For data visualization we used Morpheus software, a tool designed by the Broad Institute. B Post-hierarchical analysis these markers formed three functional clusters (#1, 2 and 3) determined with tools from the GSEA platform. These clusters refer to extracellular matrix remodeling, cell adhesion and motility, and angiogenesis (possible tube formation). C Markers forming the three functional clusters were analyzed for protein–protein interaction using STRING software (Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins). This analysis shows that extracellular matrix remodeling is dominated by integrin interactions and calcium binding events, as well as dysregulated macrophage activity (also observed by CIBERSORT analysis). D The expression levels of the markers that interact directly was plotted on graphs, where comparison has been done among all patient cohorts and statistical significance was determined by GraphPad-9 (P-value was considered significant if < 0.05 with ANOVA)