IDENTIFICATION OF THE POTENTIAL MOLECULAR BIOMARKERS OF COVID -19 AND THE ASSOCIATED DRUGS: A BIOINFORMATICS APPROACH

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has overwhelmed some of the best healthcare systems of the world and poses a major threat to the health of millions of people. This research aims to discuss the potential molecular biomarkers of COVID-19 and relatedness of these biomarkers with the available battery of drugs duly approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We retrieved the gene expression and single cell RNA sequencing data of COVID-19 patients from the Array Express Database. The data was analyzed to find the dysregulated genes in COVID-19 infection as well as the cell-types in which they are differentially expressed. It was further assessed to find relatedness to other known diseases and the FDA-approved drugs associated with them using disgenet2r and rDGIdb packages in R respectively. The dysregulated genes were found to be highly linked with Lupus Erythematosus, Leukemia, Malaria, and Rheumatoid Arthritis associated pathways. The key hub genes identified in this study include CD1A, CD40, CXCL10, HLA-DQB1, HLA-DRA, IFNG, IL1RAP, IL2RA, IL4R, IL6R, S100A8, and TLR9. These genes were then further studied using scRNA data to understand the immune profile of COVID-19 patients. Drug-gene interactions studies revealed that these potential biomarkers are related to the FDA approved therapeutic agents namely Triamcinolone, Dacetuzumab, Zidovudine, Methylprednisolone, Ritonavir, Nevirapine, Olsalazine, Daclizumab, Dupilumab, Siltuximab, Tocilizumab, Zinc Chloride, and Hydroxychloroquine. Their interactions with the key hub genes make these drugs potentially repurposable candidates for the possible intervention of coronavirus infections.