When type II diabetes mellitus meets COVID‐19—Identification of the shared gene signatures and biological mechanism between the two diseases

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAccording to current studies, more than 20% of all patients diagnosed with COVID‐19 globally have diabetes. Further, the mortality rate of these patients is 7.3%. Compared with non‐diabetic COVID‐19 patients, diabetic COVID‐19 patients have higher rates of mortality and severe infection, suggesting that diabetes is associated with the severity of COVID‐19 infection. This study aimed to analyse the relationship and susceptibility factors between COVID‐19 and T2DM.MethodsUsing bioinformatics methods, potential targets for COVID‐19 and T2DM were screened from GeneCards database. Potential targets of COVID‐19 and T2DM were mapped to each other to identify overlapping targets, and a PPI network was constructed to extract the core target. The clusterProfiler package in R was used to analyse the function and pathway that core target involved. GO enrichment and KEGG pathway analysis were used to elucidate the correlation between COVID‐19 and T2DM.ResultsA total of 277 potential pathogenic targets of COVID‐19 were found, 282 potential targets were found for T2DM. Mapping of the potential COVID‐19 and T2DM targets revealed 53 overlapping targets, with TNF as the core target. IL‐17 signalling pathway was the most significant KEGG pathway involving TNF.ConclusionsThe inflammatory cytokine, TNF, was identified as a core target between COVID‐19 and T2DM, which induces inflammatory response mainly through the IL‐17 signalling pathway, leading to aggravation of infection and increased difficulty in blood glucose control. This study provides a reference for further exploring the potential correlation and endogenous mechanisms between two seemingly independent and unrelated diseases—T2DM and COVID‐19.