Development of Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Its Application in COVID-19

Chaochao Wang; Ting Huyan; Xiaojie Zhou; Xuanshuo Zhang; Suyang Duan; Shan Gao; Shanfeng Jiang; Qi Li

doi:10.3390/v14102271

Development of Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Its Application in COVID-19

Viruses. 2022 Oct 16;14(10):2271. doi: 10.3390/v14102271.

Authors

Chaochao Wang¹, Ting Huyan¹, Xiaojie Zhou¹, Xuanshuo Zhang¹, Suyang Duan¹, Shan Gao¹, Shanfeng Jiang¹, Qi Li¹

Affiliation

¹ Key Laboratory for Space Biosciences & Biotechnology, Institute of Special Environmental Biophysics, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China.

Abstract

Over the last three years, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-related health crisis has claimed over six million lives and caused USD 12 trillion losses to the global economy. SARS-CoV-2 continuously mutates and evolves with a high basic reproduction number (R0), resulting in a variety of clinical manifestations ranging from asymptomatic infection to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and even death. To gain a better understanding of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it is critical to investigate the components that cause various clinical manifestations. Single-cell sequencing has substantial advantages in terms of identifying differentially expressed genes among individual cells, which can provide a better understanding of the various physiological and pathological processes. This article reviewed the use of single-cell transcriptomics in COVID-19 research, examined the immune response disparities generated by SARS-CoV-2, and offered insights regarding how to improve COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment plans.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; immune response; single-cell transcriptomics.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Basic Reproduction Number
COVID-19 Testing
COVID-19*
Humans
SARS-CoV-2 / genetics
Transcriptome

Grants and funding

This study was supported by funding provided by the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (2022JM-117); the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Funding of Student Affairs Department of the Party committee of Northwestern Polytechnical University (grant number 2021-CXCY-024); the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant numbers 2020M673491 and 2022T150531); and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant number D5000220170).