Ethnicity and the relationship between covid-19 and the herpes simplex viruses

Integrated Data Analysis Uncovers New COVID-19 Related Genes and Potential Drug Re-Purposing Candidates

The COVID-19 pandemic is an acute and rapidly evolving global health crisis. To better understand this disease's molecular basis and design therapeutic strategies, we built upon the recently proposed concept of an integrated cell, iCell, fusing three omics, tissue-specific human molecular interaction networks. We applied this methodology to construct infected and control iCells using gene expression data from patient samples and three cell lines. We found large differences between patient-based and cell line-based iCells (both infected and control), suggesting that cell lines are ill-suited to studying this disease. We compared patient-based infected and control iCells and uncovered genes whose functioning (wiring patterns in iCells) is altered by the disease. We validated in the literature that 18 out of the top 20 of the most rewired genes are indeed COVID-19-related. Since only three of these genes are targets of approved drugs, we applied another data fusion step to predict drugs for re-purposing. We confirmed with molecular docking that the predicted drugs can bind to their predicted targets. Our most interesting prediction is artenimol, an antimalarial agent targeting ZFP62, one of our newly identified COVID-19-related genes. This drug is a derivative of artemisinin drugs that are already under clinical investigation for their potential role in the treatment of COVID-19. Our results demonstrate further applicability of the iCell framework for integrative comparative studies of human diseases.

Systems Bioinformatics Reveals Possible Relationship between COVID-19 and the Development of Neurological Diseases and Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with increased incidence of neurological diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders after infection, but how it contributes to their development remains under investigation. Here, we investigate the possible relationship between COVID-19 and the development of ten neurological disorders and three neuropsychiatric disorders by exploring two pathological mechanisms: (i) dysregulation of host biological processes via virus-host protein-protein interactions (PPIs), and (ii) autoreactivity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epitopes with host "self" proteins via molecular mimicry. We also identify potential genetic risk factors which in combination with SARS-CoV-2 infection might lead to disease development. Our analysis indicated that neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) have a higher number of disease-associated biological processes that can be modulated by SARS-CoV-2 via virus-host PPIs than neuropsychiatric disorders. The sequence similarity analysis indicated the presence of several matching 5-mer and/or 6-mer linear motifs between SARS-CoV-2 epitopes with autoreactive epitopes found in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), Parkinson's Disease (PD), Myasthenia Gravis (MG) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The results include autoreactive epitopes that recognize amyloid-beta precursor protein (APP), microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT), acetylcholine receptors, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light polypeptide (NfL) and major myelin proteins. Altogether, our results suggest that there might be an increased risk for the development of NDs after COVID-19 both via autoreactivity and virus-host PPIs.