Abstract
:
COVID-19 is considered as the most challenging in the current situation but lung cancer
is also the leading cause of death in the global population. These two malignancies are among the
leading human diseases and are highly complex in terms of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches
as well as the most frequent and highly complex and heterogeneous in nature. Based on the latest
update, it is known that the patients suffering from lung cancer, are considered to be significantly
at higher risk of COVID-19 infection in terms of survival and there are a number of evidences
which support the hypothesis that these diseases may share the same functions and functional components.
Multi-level unwanted alterations such as (epi-)genetic alterations, changes at the transcriptional
level, and altered signaling pathways (receptor, cytoplasmic, and nuclear level) are the
major sources which promote a number of complex diseases and such heterogeneous level of complexities
are considered as the major barrier in the development of therapeutics. With so many
challenges, it is critical to understand the relationships and the common shared aberrations between
them which is difficult to unravel and understand. A simple approach has been applied for this
study where differential gene expression analysis, pathway enrichment, and network level understanding
are carried out. Since, gene expression changes and genomic alterations are related to the
COVID-19 and lung cancer but their pattern varies significantly. Based on the recent studies, it appears
that the patients suffering from lung cancer and and simultaneously infected with COVID-19,
then survival chance is lessened. So, we have designed our goal to understand the genes commonly
overexpressed and commonly enriched pathways in case of COVID-19 and lung cancer. For this
purpose, we have presented the summarized review of the previous works where the pathogenesis
of lung cancer and COVID-19 infection have been focused and we have also presented the new
finding of our analysis. So, this work not only presents the review work but also the research work.
This review and research study leads to the conclusion that growth promoting pathways (EGFR,
Ras, and PI3K), growth inhibitory pathways (p53 and STK11), apoptotic pathways (Bcl-
2/Bax/Fas), and DDR pathways and genes are commonly and dominantly altered in both the cases
COVID-19 and lung cancer.