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Two Potential Novel SARS-CoV-2 Entries, TMPRSS2 and IFITM3, in Healthy Individuals and Cancer Patients
30 Pages Posted: 8 Apr 2020
More...Abstract
Background: SARS-COV-2-induced corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) broke out in China at the end of 2019. ACE2 was considered as the receptor of SARS-COV-2 and wildly expressed in human tissues. Whereas, the extremely low expression of ACE2 in lung could hardly interpret the severe symptom of pneumonia in patients.
Methods: The tissue and blood atlas were used to analyze the RNA and protein expression in human tissues. Mutation spectrum and protein structure were analyzed by cBioPortal. ENCORI was utilized to analyze the gene expression and prognosis in pan-cancers.
Findings: We performed profiling analysis of two novel SARS-CoV-2 entries, TMPRSS2 and IFITM3, in human tissues and organs. Consistent with ACE2, TMPRSS2 was high expressed in digestive, urinary and reproductive systems, but low expressed in lung. Notably, the anti-virus protein IFITM3 expressed much lower in lung than other tissues, which might be related to the severe lung symptoms of COVID-19. In addition, the low expression of IFITM3 in immune cells suggested that SARS-CoV-2 might attack lymphocytes and induce the cytokine release syndrome. Furthermore, our data detailly analyzed different susceptibility of tumors to SARS-CoV-2 according to ACE2, TMPRSS2 or IFITM3 expression. We finally found the prognosis of six cancers (BRCA, LUAD, UCEC, KIRC, PRAD and LIHC) were closely related to these gene expressions.
Interpretation: Our study explored the profiling of two potential novel entries of SARS-CoV-2 and provided a supplementary clue for preventing infection of SARS-CoV-2.
Funding Statement: This work was supported by Innovative Research Team of High-level Local Universities in Shanghai, and Guangci Distinguished Young Scholars Training Program (GCQN-2019-B17).
Declaration of Interests: No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; Cancer; ACE2; TMPRSS2; IFITM3
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