The proteomic characteristics of airway mucus from critical ill COVID-19 patients
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Published on: June 14, 2016
Zili Zhang1, Tao Wang1, Fei Liu1
1State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Vascular Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
Background:
The pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought a global public health crisis. However, the pathogenesis underlying COVID-19 are barely understood.
Methods:
In this study, we performed proteomic analyses of airway mucus obtained by bronchoscopy from severe COVID-19 patients. In total, 2351 and 2073 proteins were identified and quantified in COVID-19 patients and healthy controls, respectively.
Results:
Among them, 92 differentiated expressed proteins (DEPs) (46 up-regulated and 46 down-regulated) were found with a fold change >1.5 or <0.67 and a p-value <0.05, and 375 proteins were uniquely present in airway mucus from COVID-19 patients. Pathway and network enrichment analyses revealed that the 92 DEPs were mostly associated with metabolic, complement and coagulation cascades, lysosome, and cholesterol metabolism pathways, and the 375 COVID-19 only proteins were mainly enriched in amino acid degradation (Valine, Leucine and Isoleucine degradation), amino acid metabolism (beta-Alanine, Tryptophan, Cysteine and Methionine metabolism), oxidative phosphorylation, phagosome, and cholesterol metabolism pathways.
Conclusions:
This study aims to provide fundamental data for elucidating proteomic changes of COVID-19, which may implicate further investigation of molecular targets directing at specific therapy.
