Discovering common pathogenetic processes between COVID-19 and diabetes mellitus by differential gene expression pattern analysis

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the newly discovered coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Increased severity of COVID-19 has been observed in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). This study aimed to identify common transcriptional signatures, regulators and pathways between COVID-19 and DM. We have integrated human whole-genome transcriptomic datasets from COVID-19 and DM, followed by functional assessment with gene ontology (GO) and pathway analyses. In peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), among the upregulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 32 were found to be commonly modulated in COVID-19 and type 2 diabetes (T2D), while 10 DEGs were commonly downregulated. As regards type 1 diabetes (T1D), 21 DEGs were commonly upregulated, and 29 DEGs were commonly downregulated in COVID-19 and T1D. Moreover, 35 DEGs were commonly upregulated in SARS-CoV-2 infected pancreas organoids and T2D islets, while 14 were commonly downregulated. Several GO terms were found in common between COVID-19 and DM. Prediction of the putative transcription factors involved in the upregulation of genes in COVID-19 and DM identified RELA to be implicated in both PBMCs and pancreas. Here, for the first time, we have characterized the biological processes and pathways commonly dysregulated in COVID-19 and DM, which could be in the next future used for the design of personalized treatment of COVID-19 patients suffering from DM as comorbidity.

‎Factors associated with coronavirus disease 2019 infection severity among a sample of Lebanese adults: Data from a cross‐sectional study

“…28,29 Rahman et al have shown that hyperglycemia and COVID-19 have a synergistic inflammatory effect that could be due to a common differential gene expression pattern between COVID-19 and diabetes, suggesting the involvement of biological processes and pathways commonly dysregulated. 30 In addition to diabetes, we have found that higher BMI was also significantly associated with higher odds of having more severe forms of COVID-19. These results suggest an association of metabolic comorbidities with adverse outcomes of COVID-19.…”

“… 28 , 29 Rahman et al have shown that hyperglycemia and COVID‐19 have a synergistic inflammatory effect that could be due to a common differential gene expression pattern between COVID‐19 and diabetes, suggesting the involvement of biological processes and pathways commonly dysregulated. 30 …”

“…Similarly, numerous evidence suggest that diabetes is associated with physiological and structural abnormalities in lung tissues that could exacerbate the lung injury during infections 28,29 . Rahman et al have shown that hyperglycemia and COVID‐19 have a synergistic inflammatory effect that could be due to a common differential gene expression pattern between COVID‐19 and diabetes, suggesting the involvement of biological processes and pathways commonly dysregulated 30 …”

Blood transcriptome analysis revealed the crosstalk between COVID-19 and HIV

“…One COVID-19 dataset (GEO accession ID: GSE171110) consisted of 44 COVID-19-infected whole-blood samples and 10 healthy whole-blood samples with Illumina HiSeq 2000 ( 22 ). Another COVID-19 dataset (GEO accession ID: GSE152418) contained 16 peripheral blood mononuclear cells samples and 17 healthy samples ( 23 ). Similarly, the HIV dataset (GEO accession ID: GSE37250) consisted of 274 positive HIV-infected whole-blood samples, 263 negative HIV-infected whole-blood samples.…”

Discovering Common Pathogenic Mechanisms of COVID-19 and Parkinson Disease: An Integrated Bioinformatics Analysis

“…Overall, all the aforementioned pieces of evidence create an urgent need that the possible crosstalk between SARS-CoV-2 and neurodegenerative disorders such as PD should be taken into consideration. Other studies have been carried out assessing other potential comorbidities in respect to COVID-19 including chronic kidney disease (Auwul et al 2021) and diabetes mellitus (Rahman et al 2021).…”