Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) that was emerged as a new member of coronaviruses since December 2019 in Wuhan, China and then after was spread in all continentals. Since SARS-CoV-2 has shown about 77.5% similarity to SARS-CoV, the transcriptome and immunological regulations of SARS-CoV-2 was expected to have high percentage of overlap with SARS-CoV. Results In this study, we applied the single cell transcriptomics data of human bronchial epithelial cells (2B4 cell line) infected with SARS-CoV, which was annotated in the Expression Atlas database to expand this data to COVID-19. In addition, we employed system biology methods including gene ontology (GO) and Reactome pathway analyses to define functional genes and pathways in the infected cells with SARS-CoV. The transcriptomics analysis on the Expression Atlas database revealed that most genes from infected 2B4 cell line with SARS-CoV were downregulated leading to immune system hyperactivation, induction of signaling pathways, and consequently a cytokine storm. In addition, GO:0016192 (vesicle-mediated transport), GO:0006886 (intracellular protein transport), and GO:0006888 (ER to Golgi vesicle-mediated transport) were shown as top three GOs in the ontology network of infected cells with SARS-CoV. Meanwhile, R-HAS-6807070 (phosphatase and tensin homolog or PTEN regulation) showed the highest association with other Reactome pathways in the network of infected cells with SARS-CoV. PTEN plays a critical role in the activation of dendritic cells, B- and T-cells, and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines, which cooperates with downregulated genes in the promotion of cytokine storm in the COVID-19 patients. Conclusions Based on the high similarity percentage of the transcriptome of SARS-CoV with SARS-CoV-2, the data of immunological regulations, signaling pathways, and proinflammatory cytokines in SARS-CoV infection can be expanded to COVID-19 to have a valid platform for future pharmaceutical and vaccine studies.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Cytokine storm, transcriptomics, Gene ontology, Severe acute respiratory syndrome, signaling pathways, bronchial epithelial cells, Immunological regulations, Reactome pathways, 【초록키워드】 coronavirus disease, Transcriptome, Vaccine, coronavirus, SARS-CoV, immune system, database, dendritic cells, Spread, Protein, Ontology, pathway, Single Cell, Golgi, proinflammatory cytokines, Critical, platform, COVID-19 patients, association, Analysis, similarity, phosphatase, Transport, Proinflammatory cytokine, System biology, acute respiratory syndrome, Activation, Regulation, overlap, secretion, SARS-CoV infection, cell line, Hyperactivation, infected cell, homolog, PTEN, immunological, Wuhan, China, Result, highest, shown, addition, applied, coronavirus, analysis, to define, expected, expand, downregulated, bronchial epithelial cell, Atla, B- and T-cells, downregulated gene, functional gene, 【제목키워드】 SARS-CoV, Human, expansion, bronchial,