Project description:The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has affected millions of people worldwide and has significant implications for public health. Host transcriptomics profiling provides comprehensive understanding of how the virus interacts with host cells and how the host responds to the virus. COVID-19 disease alters the host transcriptome, affecting cellular pathways and key molecular functions. To contribute to the global effort to understand the virus’s effect on host cell transcriptome, we have generated a dataset from nasopharyngeal swabs of 35 individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 from the Campania region in Italy during the three outbreaks, with different clinical conditions. This dataset will help to elucidate the complex interactions among genes and can be useful in the development of effective therapeutic pathways
Project description:COVID-19 is a pandemic that shares only certain clinical characteristics with other acute viral infections. Here, we studied the whole-blood transcriptomic host response to SARS-CoV-2 and compared it with other viral infections to understand similarities and differences in host response. We profiled peripheral blood from 24 healthy controls and 62 prospectively enrolled patients with community-acquired lower respiratory tract infection by SARS-Cov-2 within the first 24 hours of hospital admission using RNA-seq. We also collected 23 independent studies that profiled 1,855 blood samples from patients with one of six viruses (influenza, RSV, HRV, Ebola, Dengue, and SARS). We identified differentially expressed genes that change in patients with COVID-19 or other viral infections. We show changes in gene expression in peripheral blood from patients with COVID-19 are highly correlated with changes in response to other viral infections (r=0.74, p<0.001). However, two genes, ACO1 and ATL3, show significantly different changes in expression. Pathway analysis of differentially expressed genes in patients with COVID-19 or other viral infections versus healthy controls also identified similar pathways including neutrophil activation, innate immune response, immune response to viral infection, and cytokine production for over-expressed genes, as well as lymphocyte differentiation and T cell activation for under-expressed genes. When comparing transcriptome profiles of patients with COVID-19 directly with those with other viral infections, we found 114 and 302 genes were over- and under-expressed, respectively during COVID-19. Pathways analysis did not identify any significant pathways in these genes. Statistical deconvolution using immunoStates found that M1 macrophages, plasmacytoid dendritic cells, CD14+ monocytes, CD4+ T cells, and total B cells showed changes consistently in the same direction across all viral infections including COVID-19. Those that increased in COVID-19 but decreased in non-COVID were CD56bright NK cells, M2 macrophages, and total NK cells. The concordant and discordant responses mapped out via such a comparison provides a window to explore the underlying biology of why COVID-19 is so different from other viral infections encountered so far. Together, results from pathway and immunoStates analyses help dissect major shifts in cellularity and activation of signaling pathways as part of host response to SARS-CoV-2
Project description:SARS-CoV-2 is a beta coronavirus causing COVID-19 which first emerged in Wuhan, China and was later declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Since then the economical, health and human cost has been enormous for the world. However, little work has been done to understand the transcriptional changes brought about by the virus in human hosts. We have compared COVID-19 positive samples with negative samples from Indian patients to better understand the host response.. We find many genes related to immune response up-regulated in the COVID-19 patients. Many of these are the usual response genes against the viral infection but type I interferon appears to be a key immune response activated against SARS-CoV-2. A large number of the differentially expressed genes were down-regulated pointing towards translational arrest and down regulation of host mRNA during late infection. The down-regulated genes are well correlated with the clinical manifestations and symptoms due to SARS-CoV-2 infection such as the loss of smell and taste. We also find evidence of altered gene expression profiles associated with systemic complications such as neurological disturbances and high insulin requirement. Finally, we have identified many lncRNAs being down-regulated during COVID-19 infections. A few of these lncRNAs have functional role in viral infection. However, to understand the functional role of other lncRNAs, we looked at the function of their closest gene, since lncRNA are believed to have cis functionality. Our analysis suggests a role for lncRNA in down-regulation of metabolic and developmental processes during COVID-19 infection.
Project description:The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that emerged in late 2019 has spread globally, causing a pandemic of respiratory illness designated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A better definition of the pulmonary host response to SARS-CoV-2 infection is required to understand viral pathogenesis and to validate putative COVID-19 biomarkers that have been proposed in clinical studies. Here, we use targeted transcriptomics of FFPE tissue using the Nanostring GeoMX™ platform to generate an in-depth picture of the pulmonary transcriptional landscape of COVID-19, pandemic H1N1 influenza and uninfected control patients. Host transcriptomics showed a significant upregulation of genes associated with inflammation, type I interferon production, coagulation and angiogenesis in the lungs of COVID-19 patients compared to non-infected controls. SARS-CoV-2 was non-uniformly distributed in lungs (emphasising the advantages of spatial transcriptomics) with the areas of high viral load associated with an increased type I interferon response. Once the dominant cell type present in the sample, within patient correlations and patient-patient variation had been controlled for, only a very limited number of genes were differentially expressed between the lungs of fatal influenza and COVID-19 patients. Strikingly, the interferon-associated gene IFI27, previously identified as a useful blood biomarker to differentiate bacterial and viral lung infections, was significantly upregulated in the lungs of COVID-19 patients compared to patients with influenza. Collectively, these data demonstrate that spatial transcriptomics is a powerful tool to identify novel gene signatures within tissues, offering new insights into the pathogenesis of SARS-COV-2 to aid in patient triage and treatment
Project description:Male sex belongs to one of the risk factors for severe COVID-19 outcome. However, underlying mechanisms that could affect sex dependent disease outcome are yet unknown. Here, we identified the CYP19A1 gene encoding for the testosterone-to-estradiol metabolizing enzyme CYP19A1 (alias aromatase) as a host factor that contributes to worsened disease outcome in male hamsters. SARS-CoV-2 infection increases CYP19A1 transcription most prominently in the lungs of male animals, which correlates with reduced circulating testosterone and increased circulating estradiol levels. Dysregulated sex hormone levels in male golden hamsters are associated with reduced lung function compared to females. Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infected hamsters with letrozole, a clinically approved CYP19A1 inhibitor, supported recovery of dysregulated sex hormone levels and was associated with improved lung function in male but not female animals compared to placebo controls. Whole-lung transcriptome analysis in letrozole treated versus placebo treated control groups revealed key pathways associated with improved lung health in males. To seek translation of these findings into humans, we analyzed autopsy-derived lung samples of COVID-19 cases from three independent study sites. We found that CYP19A1 transcription and protein expression is strongly elevated in the lungs of men who died with COVID-19 as compared to females or non-COVID-19 controls. Our findings highlight the role of the lung as a yet unrecognized but critical organ involved in metabolic responses against respiratory virus infections. Furthermore, inhibition of CYP19A1 by the clinically approved drug letrozole may pose a new therapeutic strategy to reduce poor long-term COVID-19 outcome.
Project description:The on-going COVID-19 pandemic requires a deeper understanding of the long-term antibody responses that persist following SARS-CoV-2 infection. To that end, we determined epitope-specific IgG antibody responses in COVID-19 convalescent sera collected at 5 months post-diagnosis and compared that to sera from naïve individuals. Each serum sample was reacted with a high-density peptide microarray representing the complete proteome of SARS-CoV-2 as 15 mer peptides with 11 amino acid overlap and homologs of spike glycoprotein, nucleoprotein, membrane protein, and envelope small membrane protein from related human coronaviruses. Binding signatures were compared between COVID-19 convalescent patients and naïve individuals using the web service tool EPIphany.
Project description:CD8+ T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 has been implicated in COVID-19 severity and virus control. Here, we identified non-synonymous mutations in MHC-I restricted CD8+ T cell epitopes after deep sequencing of 747 SARS-CoV-2 virus isolates. Mutant peptides exhibited diminished or abrogated MHC-I binding, which was associated with a loss of recognition and functional responses by CD8+ T cells isolated from HLA-matched COVID-19 patients. Our findings highlight the capacity of SARS-CoV-2 to subvert CD8+ T cell surveillance through sporadically emerging escape mutations in MHC- I restricted viral epitopes.
Project description:Patients often present with kidney injury in COVID-19. Although severe COVID-19 cases are treated with baricitinib, a JAK inhibitor, the effects of baricitinib on the kidneys in COVID-19 are unclear. The authors examined the pharmacological effects of baricitinib on kidney injury using an in vivo murine COVID-19 model.
Project description:Patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mostly become critically ill around the time of activation of the adaptive immune response. Here, we provide evidence that antibodies play a role in the worsening of disease at the time of seroconversion. We show that early phase severe acute respiratory distress syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein-specific IgG in serum of critically ill COVID-19 patients induces hyper-inflammatory responses by human alveolar macrophages. We identified that this excessive inflammatory response is dependent on two antibody features that are specific for patients with severe COVID-19. First, inflammation is driven by high titers of anti-spike IgG, a hallmark of severe disease. Second, we found that anti-spike IgG from patients with severe COVID-19 is intrinsically more pro-inflammatory because of different glycosylation, particularly low fucosylation, of the Fc tail. Notably, low anti-spike IgG fucosylation normalized in a few weeks after initial infection with SARS-CoV-2, indicating that the increased antibody-dependent inflammation mainly occurs at the time of seroconversion. We identified Fcγ Receptor (FcγR) IIa and FcγRIII as the two primary IgG receptors that are responsible for the induction of key COVID-19-associated cytokines such as interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor. In addition, we show that anti-spike IgG-activated macrophages can subsequently break pulmonary endothelial barrier integrity and induce microvascular thrombosis in vitro. Finally, we demonstrate that the hyper-inflammatory response induced by anti-spike IgG can be specifically counteracted by fostamatinib, an FDA- and EMA-approved therapeutic small molecule inhibitor of the kinase, Syk.
Project description:It is urgent and important to understand the relationship of the widespread severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus clade 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with host immune response and study the underlying molecular mechanism. RNA modification landscape of SARS-CoV-2 and its functional relevance to host cell innate immune response remain unknown. N6-methylation of adenosine (m6A) in RNA regulates many physiological and disease processes. Here, we investigated m6A modification of SARS-CoV-2 gene in regulating host cell innate immune response. Our data showed that SARS-CoV-2 virus has m6A modification enriched in 3' region of the viral genome. We also found that host cell m6A methyltransferase METTL3 depletion reduced viral load in infected cells, decreased m6A levels in SARS-CoV-2 and host genes, and m6A reduction in viral RNA increased RIG-1 binding and subsequently enhanced downstream innate immune signaling pathway and inflammatory gene expression. METTL3 expression is reduced and inflammatory genes are induced in severe COVID-19 patients. These findings will aid to understand the COVID-19 pathogenesis and help in designing future studies of regulating innate immunity for COVID-19 treatment.