Abnormal global alternative RNA splicing in COVID-19 patients

PLoS Genet. 2022 Apr 14;18(4):e1010137. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010137. eCollection 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Viral infections can alter host transcriptomes by manipulating host splicing machinery. Despite intensive transcriptomic studies on SARS-CoV-2, a systematic analysis of alternative splicing (AS) in severe COVID-19 patients remains largely elusive. Here we integrated proteomic and transcriptomic sequencing data to study AS changes in COVID-19 patients. We discovered that RNA splicing is among the major down-regulated proteomic signatures in COVID-19 patients. The transcriptome analysis showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection induces widespread dysregulation of transcript usage and expression, affecting blood coagulation, neutrophil activation, and cytokine production. Notably, CD74 and LRRFIP1 had increased skipping of an exon in COVID-19 patients that disrupts a functional domain, which correlated with reduced antiviral immunity. Furthermore, the dysregulation of transcripts was strongly correlated with clinical severity of COVID-19, and splice-variants may contribute to unexpected therapeutic activity. In summary, our data highlight that a better understanding of the AS landscape may aid in COVID-19 diagnosis and therapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alternative Splicing / genetics
  • COVID-19 Testing
  • COVID-19* / genetics
  • Humans
  • Proteomics
  • SARS-CoV-2 / genetics
  • Transcriptome

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of P. R. China Plan (grant number 2020YFC0844700). T.X. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61571202). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.