Upregulated Proteasome Subunits in COVID-19 Patients: A Link with Hypoxemia, Lymphopenia and Inflammation.
Biomolecules
; 12(3)2022 03 13.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1742313
ABSTRACT
Severe COVID-19 disease leads to hypoxemia, inflammation and lymphopenia. Viral infection induces cellular stress and causes the activation of the innate immune response. The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) is highly implicated in viral immune response regulation. The main function of the proteasome is protein degradation in its active form, which recognises and binds to ubiquitylated proteins. Some proteasome subunits have been reported to be upregulated under hypoxic and hyperinflammatory conditions. Here, we conducted a prospective cohort study of COVID-19 patients (n = 44) and age-and sex-matched controls (n = 20). In this study, we suggested that hypoxia could induce the overexpression of certain genes encoding for subunits from the α and ß core of the 20S proteasome and from regulatory particles (19S and 11S) in COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, the gene expression of proteasome subunits was associated with lymphocyte count reduction and positively correlated with inflammatory molecular and clinical markers. Given the importance of the proteasome in maintaining cellular homeostasis, including the regulation of the apoptotic and pyroptotic pathways, these results provide a potential link between COVID-19 complications and proteasome gene expression.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
/
Lymphopenia
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Biom12030442
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