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

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

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • COVID-19 / mortality*
  • COVID-19 / pathology*
  • Cardiovascular Diseases / epidemiology
  • Cardiovascular Diseases / genetics
  • Comorbidity
  • Computational Biology / methods*
  • Cytokine Release Syndrome / mortality
  • Databases, Genetic
  • Diabetes Mellitus / epidemiology
  • Diabetes Mellitus / genetics
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Hepatitis / epidemiology
  • Hepatitis / genetics
  • Humans
  • Kidney Diseases / epidemiology
  • Kidney Diseases / genetics
  • Lung Diseases / epidemiology
  • Lung Diseases / genetics
  • Mice
  • Respiratory Distress Syndrome / mortality
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Severity of Illness Index