A Pan-Cancer In Silico Analysis of the COVID-19 Internalization Protease: Transmembrane Proteaseserine-2.

ABSTRACT

The new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is an emerging pathogen that can cause severe respiratory infections in humans. It is worth noting that many of the affected COVID-19 patients have malignant tumors. In addition, cancer has been identified as a personal risk factor for COVID-19. Transmembrane proteaseserine-2 (TMPRSS2) is a crucial host protease that mediates S protein activation and initially promotes virus entry into host cells. Moreover, it is abnormally expressed in a variety of tumors. However, the systematic analysis of TMPRSS2 aberrations in human cancer remains to be elucidated. Here, we analyzed the genetic changes, RNA expression, and DNA methylation of TMPRSS2 in more than 30 tumors. It has been reported that TMPRSS2 is overexpressed in tumors such as prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD), and in contrast, the expression of TMPRSS2 is decreased in tumors such as head and neck cancer (HNSC). In addition, TMPRSS2 low DNA methylation was also found in most of these TMPRSS2 high-expressing tumors in this study. Clinical studies have found that there is a significant correlation between the expression of TMPRSS2 and the prognosis of some tumor patients. The expression of TMPRSS2 is also related to the infiltration of cancer-related fibroblasts, and the potential pathways and functional mechanisms were analyzed through KEGG/GO enrichment. In the end, our study planned the genetic and epigenetic variation of TMPRSS2 in human malignant tumors for the first time and provided a relatively comprehensive understanding of the carcinogenic effects of TMPRSS2.