RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Identifying The “Core” Transcriptome of SARS-CoV-2 Infected Cells
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.09.22.461142
DO 10.1101/2021.09.22.461142
A1 Elanood Tageldin Nour
A1 Ryan Tran
A1 Ayda Afravi
A1 Xinyue Pei
A1 Angela Davidian
A1 Pavan Kadandale
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/23/2021.09.22.461142.abstract
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.