Identification and Analysis of Biomarkers Associated with Lipophagy and Therapeutic Agents for COVID-19

Overview

Journal Viruses

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Microbiology

Date 2024 Jun 27

PMID 38932215

Authors

Yujia Wu

Zhenlin Wu

Qiying Jin

Jinyuan Liu

Peiping Xu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Lipids, as a fundamental cell component, play an regulating role in controlling the different cellular biological processes involved in viral infections. A notable feature of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is impaired lipid metabolism. The function of lipophagy-related genes in COVID-19 is unknown. The present study aimed to investigate biomarkers and drug targets associated with lipophagy and lipophagy-based therapeutic agents for COVID-19 through bioinformatics analysis.

Methods: Lipophagy-related biomarkers for COVID-19 were identified using machine learning algorithms such as random forest, Support Vector Machine-Recursive Feature Elimination, Generalized Linear Model, and Extreme Gradient Boosting in three COVID-19-associated GEO datasets: scRNA-seq (GSE145926) and bulk RNA-seq (GSE183533 and GSE190496). The cMAP database was searched for potential COVID-19 medications.

Results: The lipophagy pathway was downregulated, and the lipid droplet formation pathway was upregulated, resulting in impaired lipid metabolism. Seven lipophagy-related genes, including , , , , , , and , were used as biomarkers and drug targets for COVID-19. Moreover, lipophagy may play a role in COVID-19 pathogenesis. As prospective drugs for treating COVID-19, seven potential downregulators (phenoxybenzamine, helveticoside, lanatoside C, geldanamycin, loperamide, pioglitazone, and trichostatin A) were discovered. These medication candidates showed remarkable binding energies against the seven biomarkers.

Conclusions: The lipophagy-related genes , , , , , , and can be used as biomarkers and drug targets for COVID-19. Seven potential downregulators of these seven biomarkers may have therapeutic effects for treating COVID-19.

Citing Articles

Effect of pioglitazone on inflammatory response and clinical outcome in T2DM patients with COVID-19: a randomized multicenter double-blind clinical trial.

Baagar K, Alessa T, Abu-Farha M, Abubaker J, Alhumaidi H, Franco Ceruto J Front Immunol. 2024; 15:1369918.

PMID: 39308871 PMC: 11412854. DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1369918.

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