Identification of toll‐like receptor 5 and acyl‐CoA synthetase long chain family member 1 as hub genes are correlated with the severe forms of COVID‐19 by Weighted gene co‐expression network analysis

Abstract

Since a 25% mortality rate occurred in critical Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) patients, investigating the potential drivers remains to be important. Here, the authors applied Weighted Gene Co‐expression Network Analysis to identify the potential drivers in the blood samples of multiple COVID‐19 expression profiles. The authors found that the darkslateblue module was significantly correlated with critical COVID‐19, and Gene Ontology analysis indicated terms associated with the inflammation pathway and apoptotic process. The authors intersected differentially expressed genes, Maximal Clique Centrality calculated hub genes, and COVID‐19 related genes in the Genecards dataset, and two genes, toll‐like receptor 5 (TLR5) and acyl‐CoA synthetase long chain family member 1 (ACSL1), were screened out. The Gene Set Enrichment Analysis further supports their core role in the inflammatory pathway. Furthermore, the cell‐type identification by estimating relative subsets of RNA transcript demonstrated that TLR5 and ACSL1 were associated with neutrophil enrichment in critical COVID‐19 patients. Collectively, the aurthors identified two hub genes that were strongly correlated with critical COVID‐19. These may help clarify the pathogenesis and assist the immunotherapy development.