Abstract
The use of high-throughput small RNA sequencing is well established as a technique to unveil the miRNAs in various tissues. The miRNA profiles are different between infected and non-infected tissues. We compare the SARS-CoV-2 positive and SARS-CoV-2 negative RNA samples extracted from human nasopharynx tissue samples to show different miRNA profiles. We explored differentially expressed miRNAs in response to SARS-CoV-2 in the RNA extracted from nasopharynx tissues of 10 SARS-CoV-2-positive and 10 SARS-CoV-2-negative patients. miRNAs were identified by small RNA sequencing, and the expression levels of selected miRNAs were validated by real-time RT-PCR. We identified 943 conserved miRNAs, likely generated through posttranscriptional modifications. The identified miRNAs were expressed in both RNA groups, NegS and PosS: miR-148a, miR-21, miR-34c, miR-34b, and miR-342. The most differentially expressed miRNA was miR-21, which is likely closely linked to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharynx tissues. Our results contribute to further understanding the role of miRNAs in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, which may be crucial for understanding disease symptom development in humans.
Highlights
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is currently a global threat leading to considerable disease and mortality worldwide
The Abundance of miRNAs Detected in Nasopharynx Tissues
According to the differences in abundances between the NegS and PosS groups, we focused on the five following conserved miRNAs: miR-148a, miR-21, miR-34c, miR-34b, and miR-342
Summary
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is currently a global threat leading to considerable disease and mortality worldwide. SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the order Nidovirales, family Coronaviridae, subfamily Orthocoronavirinae, genus Betacoronavirus, and subgenus Sarbecovirus. It has a single-stranded positive-sense RNA genome, 26–32 kilobases (kb) in length [4]. Small noncoding endogenous RNAs called microRNAs (miRNAs) play a major role in posttranscriptional gene regulation related to diverse biological processes, including development, immune system responses, or cell death [7]. MiRNAs might hold a negative or positive role in virus-related processes in three ways: direct binding to the viral genome, binding to viral transcripts, or binding to host transcripts [8]. Human miRNAs can promote stability, replication, and infection of viral RNA, they can reinforce host antiviral responses against viruses. We hypothesize that the obtained miRNA profiles will show differences between SARS-CoV-2-negative and SARS-CoV-2-positive RNA samples
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