Functional Roles and Targets of COVID-19 in Blood Cells Determined Using Bioinformatics Analyses

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is a global epidemic with a high mortality rate. In this study, our goal was to identify the function and associated targets of SARS-CoV-2 from circulating monocytes in the blood and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) dataset of patients with COVID-19. METHODS: The Gene Expression Omnibus database (GSE164805 and GSE180594) was used to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Gene ontology function analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses of the DEGs were performed using the DAVID database. RESULTS: Gene ontology analysis of DEG revealed that GSE164805 and GSE180594 were involved in the regulation of cell migration, upregulation of cell proliferation, and in the activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis of GSE164805 revealed that the DEGs were enriched in peroxisome, melanogenesis, and actin regulation. Peroxisome genes were highly expressed in patients with mild and severe COVID-19. Bioinformatics analysis to compare GSE180594 and public data for the single-cell atlas of the peripheral immune response in patients with COVID-19 showed that interferon-associated genes were highly increased in acute COVID-19 PBMC and in CD14+ and CD16+ monocytes from patients with COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: We comprehensively analyzed the blood cell gene expression profile data of patients with COVID-19 using bioinformatics methods to preliminary understand the functions and associated targets of DEGs in the blood cells of these patients. Thus, our data provide targets for potential therapies against COVID-19.