The proteomic characteristics of airway mucus from critical ill COVID-19 patients

Zhang, Zili; Wang, Tao; Liu, Fei; Zhu, Airu; Gu, Guoping; Luo, Jieping; Xu, Jingyi; Zhao, Jincun; Li, Yiming; Li, Yuanyuan; Liu, Xiaoqing; Zhong, Nanshan; Lu, Wenju

BACKGROUND: The pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought a global public health crisis. However, the pathogenesis underlying COVID-19 are barely understood. METHODS: In this study, we performed proteomic analyses of airway mucus obtained by bronchoscopy from severe COVID-19 patients. In total, 2351 and 2073 proteins were identified and quantified in COVID-19 patients and healthy controls, respectively. RESULTS: Among them, 92 differentiated expressed proteins (DEPs) (46 up-regulated and 46 down-regulated) were found with a fold change >1.5 or <0.67 and a p-value <0.05, and 375 proteins were uniquely present in airway mucus from COVID-19 patients. Pathway and network enrichment analyses revealed that the 92 DEPs were mostly associated with metabolic, complement and coagulation cascades, lysosome, and cholesterol metabolism pathways, and the 375 COVID-19 only proteins were mainly enriched in amino acid degradation (Valine, Leucine and Isoleucine degradation), amino acid metabolism (beta-Alanine, Tryptophan, Cysteine and Methionine metabolism), oxidative phosphorylation, phagosome, and cholesterol metabolism pathways. CONCLUSIONS: This study aims to provide fundamental data for elucidating proteomic changes of COVID-19, which may implicate further investigation of molecular targets directing at specific therapy.