PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Elanood Tageldin Nour
AU  - Ryan Tran
AU  - Ayda Afravi
AU  - Xinyue Pei
AU  - Angela Davidian
AU  - Pavan Kadandale
TI  - Identifying The “Core” Transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2 Infected Cells
AID  - 10.1101/2021.09.22.461142
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.09.22.461142
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/23/2021.09.22.461142.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/23/2021.09.22.461142.full
AB  - In 2019, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) first emerged, causing the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, ongoing research has focused on better understanding the mechanisms underlying the symptoms of this disease. Although COVID-19 symptoms span a range of organ systems, the specific changes in gene regulation that lead to the variety of symptoms are still unclear. In our study, we used publicly available transcriptome data from previous studies on SARS-CoV-2 to identify commonly regulated genes across cardiomyocytes, human bronchial epithelial cells, alveolar type II cells, lung adenocarcinoma, human embryonic kidney cells, and patient samples. Additionally, using this common “core” transcriptome, we could identify the genes that were specifically and uniquely regulated in bronchial epithelial cells, embryonic kidney cells, or cardiomyocytes. For example, we found that genes related to cell metabolism were uniquely upregulated in kidney cells, providing us with the first mechanistic clue about specifically how kidney cells may be affected by SARS-CoV-2. Overall, our results uncover connections between the differential gene regulation in various cell types in response to the SARS-CoV-2 infection and help identify targets of potential therapeutics.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.