Conserved MicroRNAs in Human Nasopharynx Tissue Samples from Swabs Are Differentially Expressed in Response to SARS-CoV-2

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Authors	EICHMEIER Ales KISS Tomas KOCANOVA Maria HAKALOVA Eliska SPETIK Milan CECHOVA Jana TICHÝ Boris
Year of publication	2022
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	GENES
MU Faculty or unit	Central European Institute of Technology
Citation
Web	https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/2/348
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13020348
Keywords	miRNAs; small RNA sequencing; SARS-CoV-2; real-time RT-PCR; mir-21
Description	The use of high-throughput small RNA sequencing is well established as a technique to unveil the miRNAs in various tissues. The miRNA profiles are different between infected and non-infected tissues. We compare the SARS-CoV-2 positive and SARS-CoV-2 negative RNA samples extracted from human nasopharynx tissue samples to show different miRNA profiles. We explored differentially expressed miRNAs in response to SARS-CoV-2 in the RNA extracted from nasopharynx tissues of 10 SARS-CoV-2-positive and 10 SARS-CoV-2-negative patients. miRNAs were identified by small RNA sequencing, and the expression levels of selected miRNAs were validated by real-time RT-PCR. We identified 943 conserved miRNAs, likely generated through posttranscriptional modifications. The identified miRNAs were expressed in both RNA groups, NegS and PosS: miR-148a, miR-21, miR-34c, miR-34b, and miR-342. The most differentially expressed miRNA was miR-21, which is likely closely linked to the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in nasopharynx tissues. Our results contribute to further understanding the role of miRNAs in SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis, which may be crucial for understanding disease symptom development in humans.