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. 2020 Nov 30;10(1):20848.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-77632-8.

Investigation of COVID-19 comorbidities reveals genes and pathways coincident with the SARS-CoV-2 viral disease

Mary E Dolan  1 , David P Hill  2 , Gaurab Mukherjee  2 , Monica S McAndrews  2 , Elissa J Chesler  2 , Judith A Blake  2
Affiliations

Investigation of COVID-19 comorbidities reveals genes and pathways coincident with the SARS-CoV-2 viral disease

Mary E Dolan et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and subsequent COVID-19 pandemic initiated intense research into the mechanisms of action for this virus. It was quickly noted that COVID-19 presents more seriously in conjunction with other human disease conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and lung diseases. We conducted a bioinformatics analysis of COVID-19 comorbidity-associated gene sets, identifying genes and pathways shared among the comorbidities, and evaluated current knowledge about these genes and pathways as related to current information about SARS-CoV-2 infection. We performed our analysis using GeneWeaver (GW), Reactome, and several biomedical ontologies to represent and compare common COVID-19 comorbidities. Phenotypic analysis of shared genes revealed significant enrichment for immune system phenotypes and for cardiovascular-related phenotypes, which might point to alleles and phenotypes in mouse models that could be evaluated for clues to COVID-19 severity. Through pathway analysis, we identified enriched pathways shared by comorbidity datasets and datasets associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The top 25 most significantly enriched pathways involving the eight genes shared among all five comorbidities. Pathways that are similar or directly related in the Reactome knowledgebase are color coded. Yellow: lipoprotein-related processes; peach: scavenger receptor pathways; blue: blood clotting; green; retinoid-related pathways; grey; signaling through STAT3.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The top 25 most significantly enriched pathways involving the 123 genes shared among four out of five comorbidities. Pathways that are similar or directly related in the Reactome knowledgebase are color coded. Yellow: adaptive immune system pathways; blue: interleukin signaling pathways; green; interferon signaling pathways.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phenotype Enrichment for the Eight Genes Shared by All Five Comorbidities. Cells shaded in yellow indicate that there is a mouse model in the MGI resource that has been studied for the specific phenotype.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Update of

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