@article {Patterson2020.12.16.423122, author = {Bruce K Patterson and Jose Guevara-Coto and Ram Yogendra and Edgar Francisco and Emily Long and Amruta Pise and Hallison Rodrigues and Purvi Parikh and Javier Mora and Rodrigo A Mora-Rodr{\'\i}guez}, title = {Immune-Based Prediction of COVID-19 Severity and Chronicity Decoded Using Machine Learning}, elocation-id = {2020.12.16.423122}, year = {2020}, doi = {10.1101/2020.12.16.423122}, publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, abstract = {Individuals with systemic symptoms long after COVID-19 has cleared represent approximately ~10\% of all COVID-19 infected individuals. Here we present a bioinformatics approach to predict and model the phases of COVID so that effective treatment strategies can be devised and monitored. We investigated 144 individuals including normal individuals and patients spanning the COVID-19 disease continuum. We collected plasma and isolated PBMCs from 29 normal individuals, 26 individuals with mild-moderate COVID-19, 25 individuals with severe COVID-19, and 64 individuals with Chronic COVID-19 symptoms. Immune subset profiling and a 14-plex cytokine panel were run on all patients. Data was analyzed using machine learning methods to predict and distinguish the groups from each other.Using a multi-class deep neural network classifier to better fit our prediction model, we recapitulated a 100\% precision, 100\% recall and F1 score of 1 on the test set. Moreover, a first score specific for the chronic COVID-19 patients was defined as S1 = (IFN-γ + IL-2)/ CCL4-MIP-1β. Second, a score specific for the severe COVID-19 patients was defined as S2 = (10*IL-10 + IL-6) - (IL-2 + IL-8). Severe cases are characterized by excessive inflammation and dysregulated T cell activation, recruitment, and counteracting activities. While chronic patients are characterized by a profile able to induce the activation of effector T cells with pro-inflammatory properties and the capacity of generating an effective immune response to eliminate the virus but without the proper recruitment signals to attract activated T cells.Summary Immunologic Modeling of Severity and Chronicity of COVID-19Competing Interest StatementB.K.P, A.P., H.R., E.L. are employees of IncellDxAbbreviationsILinterleukinRANTESregulation on activationnormal Texpressed and secretedCCRchemokine receptorIFNinterferonTNFtumor necrosis factorMIPmacrophage inflammatory proteinGM-CSFgranulocyte-macrophage colonystimulating factorVEGFvascular endothelial growth factorHIVhuman immunodeficiency virusHCVhepatitis C virus}, URL = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/22/2020.12.16.423122}, eprint = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/22/2020.12.16.423122.full.pdf}, journal = {bioRxiv} }