A Pan-Cancer In Silico Analysis of the COVID-19 Internalization Protease: Transmembrane Proteaseserine-2

Abstract

The new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is an emerging pathogen that can cause severe respiratory infections in humans. It is worth noting that many of the affected COVID-19 patients have malignant tumors. In addition, cancer has been identified as a personal risk factor for COVID-19. Transmembrane proteaseserine-2 (TMPRSS2) is a crucial host protease that mediates S protein activation and initially promotes virus entry into host cells. Moreover, it is abnormally expressed in a variety of tumors. However, the systematic analysis of TMPRSS2 aberrations in human cancer remains to be elucidated. Here, we analyzed the genetic changes, RNA expression, and DNA methylation of TMPRSS2 in more than 30 tumors. It has been reported that TMPRSS2 is overexpressed in tumors such as prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD), and in contrast, the expression of TMPRSS2 is decreased in tumors such as head and neck cancer (HNSC). In addition, TMPRSS2 low DNA methylation was also found in most of these TMPRSS2 high-expressing tumors in this study. Clinical studies have found that there is a significant correlation between the expression of TMPRSS2 and the prognosis of some tumor patients. The expression of TMPRSS2 is also related to the infiltration of cancer-related fibroblasts, and the potential pathways and functional mechanisms were analyzed through KEGG/GO enrichment. In the end, our study planned the genetic and epigenetic variation of TMPRSS2 in human malignant tumors for the first time and provided a relatively comprehensive understanding of the carcinogenic effects of TMPRSS2.

The role of Cyclin Dependent Kinase Inhibitor 3 (CDKN3) in promoting human tumors: Literature review and pan-cancer analysis

“…Then we obtained the first 100 targeted genes related to CDKN3 based on data sets by using the "Similar Gene Detection" module of GEPIA2. In addition, the "Gene_Corr" module of TIMER 2.0 provided heat map data of selected genes [ 39 ]. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) path analysis were performed and accomplished [ [40] , [41] , [42] ].…”

Integrative profiling of CEACAM1 in different malignancies with implications on the SARS-CoV-2 infection genes ACE2 and TMPRSS2

“…Given the inflammatory nature of cancer, other infectious diseases and the cytokine storm seen in COVID-19 positive patients, studies reported elevated levels of cytokines and TNF-α in severe COVID-19 cases [12][13][14][15], suggesting cancer patients can be more prone to develop COVID-19 disease. Also, various viral entry, processing and endosomal route protein were detected to be elevated in pancancer samples in comparison to their healthy control [16][17][18]. Furthermore, pan-cancer studies revealed that SARS-CoV-2 associated genes, namely ACE2, TMPRSS2, TMPRSS4, were found to be upregulated in a number of TGCA samples [4,5,19,20], indicating an interplay between cancer and SARS-CoV-2 infection.…”