piRNA Profiling for COVID-19 Patients' and Healthy Donors' Blood Cells

Abstract

Physiological condition and cell type have a major impact on non-coding RNA expression. These molecules' regulatory characteristics are impacted by changes in expression. We examined RNA-seq data from sorted blood cells of severe COVID-19 patients as well as healthy control donors. In addition to examining the behavior of piRNA in the blood cells of COVID-19 patients, our goals were to present a distinct piRNA differential expression portrait for each separate cell type. Depending on the type of cell, different sorted control cells (erythrocytes, monocytes, lymphocytes, eosinophils, basophils, and neutrophils) have different overall piRNA expression patterns. After analyzing the expression of piRNAs in each set of sorted cells from patients with severe COVID-19, we found that three piRNAs were elevated and ten downregulated in erythrocytes. In lymphocytes, all 19 piRNAs were upregulated. Monocytes were presented with a larger amount of statistically significant piRNA, 4 upregulated and 35 downregulated.

Note:
Funding Information: This work was supported by St. Petersburg State University, project ID: 95412780. The investigation of the structure by means of low-voltage scanning electron microscopy was carried out at the IRC for Nanotechnology of the Science Park of St. Petersburg State University within the framework of project No. AAAA-A19-119091190094.

Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the expert ethics council of St. Petersburg City Hospital No. 40 (protocol No. 171 of 18 May 2020). Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Keywords: piRNA, blood cells, severe COVID-19, erythrocytes, monocytes, lymphocytes, next generation sequencing of smallRNAs, eosinophils, basophils, neutrophils