Project description:Detection of viral RNA by PCR is currently the main diagnostic tool for COVID-191. The PCR-based test, however, shows limited sensitivity, especially at early and late stages of the disease development, and is relatively time consuming. Fast and reliable complementary methods for detecting the viral infection would be of help in the current pandemia conditions. Mass-spectrometry is one of such possibilities. We have developed a mass-spectrometry based method for the detection of the SARS CoV-2 virus in nasopharynx epithelial swabs, based on the detection of the viral nucleocapsid N protein. The N protein of the SARS-COV-2 virus, the most abundant protein in the virion, is the best candidate for mass-spectrometric detection of the infection, and MS-based detection of several peptides from the SARS-COoV-2 nucleoprotein has been reported earlier by the Sinz group. Our approach shows confident identification of the N protein in patient samples even with the lowest viral loads and a much simpler preparation procedure. Our main protocol consists of virus inactivation by heating and adding of isopropanol, and tryptic digestion of the proteins sedimented from the swabs followed by MS analysis. A set of unique peptides, produced as a result of proteolysis of the nucleocapsid phosphoprotein of SARS-CoV-2, is detected. The obtained results can further be used to create fast parallel mass-spectrometric approaches for the detection of the virus in the nasopharyngeal mucosa, saliva, sputum and other physiological fluids. Note: samples containing minor contamination of synthetic S peptides
Project description:We used microarrays to detail the global gene expression in human nasopharynx cell line transfected with gene or empty vector. human nasopharynx cell line transfected with gene or empty vector were for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.
Project description:To elucidate key pathways in the host transcriptome of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2, we used RNA sequencing (RNA Seq) to analyze nasopharyngeal (NP) swab and whole blood (WB) samples from 333 COVID-19 patients and controls, including patients with other viral and bacterial infections. Analyses of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and pathways was performed relative to other infections (e.g. influenza, other seasonal coronaviruses, bacterial sepsis) in both NP swabs and WB. Comparative COVID-19 host responses between NP swabs and WB were examined. Both hospitalized patients and outpatients exhibited upregulation of interferon-associated pathways, although heightened and more robust inflammatory and immune responses were observed in hospitalized patients with more clinically severe disease. A two-layer machine learning-based classifier, run on an independent test set of NP swab samples, was able to discriminate between COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 infectious or non-infectious acute respiratory illness using complete (>1,000 genes), medium (<100) and small (<20) gene biomarker panels with 85.1%-86.5% accuracy, respectively. These findings demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 infection has a distinct biosignature that differs between NP swabs and WB and can be leveraged for differential diagnosis of COVID-19 disease.
Project description:We used total RNA of nasopharyngeal swabs from COVID-19 patients to identify their gene expression profile. Multiple biological process were significantly enriched in either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic patients. These significantly expressed genes were suggested to contribute to the severity of the disease. We also performed metagenomics analysis to identify differences in the microbiome profile of the two groups of patients.