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. 2021 Oct 29;14(1):401.
doi: 10.1186/s13104-021-05816-0.

Dysregulation of RNA interference components in COVID-19 patients

Seyyed Reza Mousavi  1   2 , Maryam Sadat Sajjadi  3 , Farinaz Khosravian  1   2 , Sara Feizbakhshan  1   2 , Sharareh Salmanizadeh  1   2 , Zahra Taherian Esfahani  3 , Faeze Ahmadi Beni  1   2   4 , Ameneh Arab  5 , Mohammad Kazemi  4 , Kiana Shahzamani  6 , Ramin Sami  7 , Majid Hosseinzadeh  8 , Mansoor Salehi  9   10   11 , Hajie Lotfi  12
Affiliations

Dysregulation of RNA interference components in COVID-19 patients

Seyyed Reza Mousavi et al. BMC Res Notes. .

Abstract

Objective: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the novel coronavirus causing severe respiratory illness (COVID-19). This virus was initially identified in Wuhan city, a populated area of the Hubei province in China, and still remains one of the major global health challenges. RNA interference (RNAi) is a mechanism of post-transcriptional gene silencing that plays a crucial role in innate viral defense mechanisms by inhibiting the virus replication as well as expression of various viral proteins. Dicer, Drosha, Ago2, and DGCR8 are essential components of the RNAi system, which is supposed to be dysregulated in COVID-19 patients. This study aimed to assess the expression level of the mentioned mRNAs in COVID-19patients compared to healthy individuals.

Results: Our findings demonstrated that the expression of Dicer, Drosha, and Ago2 was statistically altered in COVID-19 patients compared to healthy subjects. Ultimately, the RNA interference mechanism as a crucial antiviral defense system was suggested to be dysregulated in COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: Ago2; DGCR8; Dicer; Drosha; RNA interference; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Gene ontology enrichment analysis. microRNA biogenesis was enriched as a signaling pathway in which all four genes are involved. dsRNA binding and endoribonuclease complex were enriched as molecular function and cellular compartment, respectively (p-value ≤ 0.05)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis of DICER, Drosha, Ago2, and DGCR8. The edge's labels are based on predicted PPI score
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Quantitative real-time PCR analysis of Ago2 (A), Dicer (B), Drosha (C), and DGCR8 (D) in COVID-19 patients and healthy controls. The mRNA expression level of genes was evaluated in the whole blood samples of 20 COVID-19 patients and 20 controls. P values are calculated by parametric t-test for Ago2 and Dicer (p-value < 0.0001) and non-parametric Mann Whitney test for Drosha p-value < 0.0001 andDGCR8 non-significant (ns: p-value 0.213). GAPDH was utilized for an endogenous reference to normalize mRNA expression levels
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