The role of T cell related genes in COVID-19 and osteoporosis and the
screening of biomarkers were explored based on bioinformatics
Abstract
Background: Studies have revealed that coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) could induce or aggravate osteoporosis (OP) which is the most
common metabolic bone disease, and T cells participated in the
progression of OP. Methods: OP and COVID-19 related RNA sequencing data
(RNA-seq) were downloaded from the bioinformatics database. Firstly,
differentially expressed genes between OP and control samples and
between COVID-19 and healthy samples were screened out by differential
analyses for further intersection to obtain intersected genes. Then,
weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was applied based
on T cell infiltrating scores (T-scores) calculated by “MCPcounter”
package to screen T cell related genes (TRGs). Subsequently, these TRGs
were intersected with intersected genes to obtain biomarkers. In
addition, to figure out deeper mechanism of them, we conducted
enrichment analyses and constructed miRNA-mRNA and TF-miRNA networks of
biomarkers. Results: Based on the OP and COVID-19 datasets, totals of 14
intersected genes were obtained via differential analyses, and 459 TRGs
were screened out after WGCNA. Then, 3 biomarkers including ITGA7,
ZNF302, and LYRM7 were acquired by intersection between TRGs and
intersected genes. Results of enrichment analyses demonstrated that
biomarkers were mainly commonly enriched in “mitochondrial
protein-containing complex”, “Proteasome”, and “Spliceosome” in OP,
and “transmitter−gated channel activity”, “Nicotine addiction”, and
so on in COVID-19. Otherwise, we predicted 7 micro RNAs (miRNAs) and 46
transcription factors (TFs) regulating the biomarkers, and constructed
the miRNA-mRNA and TF-mRNA networks. Conclusion: In this study, we
screened out 3 biomarkers associated with OP, COVID-19, and T cells,
namely ITGA7, ZNF302, and LYRM7, that had preferable prediction
performance of OP. The results could provide references for further
studies and treatments of OP.