Scientist Reveals Major Discovery on Gene Prediction for Diabetes Therapies and its Link to Covid-19

Chronic pathologies and underlying comorbidities were a stumbling block during the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic. A great variety of pre-established chronic pathologies, such as Diabetes, were the reason why the infected patients presented discouraging evolutions and prognoses. What processes at the cellular level occurred here? What genetic information can contribute to new therapies? All this information was revealed by a recent investigation in which Dr. José Carlos Rivas Ferreira from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Concepción participated..

By Valentina Luza Carrión / Science in Chile.-Today diabetes is considered almost a global pandemic. The numbers of those who suffer from this disease only increase as the years go by. According to the new Diabetes Atlas of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), 1 in 10 adults suffer from it.

But it does not come by itself: it is estimated that almost 50% of people living with these pathologies will develop kidney complications and damage to other target organs and the cardiovascular system in the short or medium term.

Another important background to mention is how the synergistic relationship of pathologies prior to infection was emphasized during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic and how these were a significant risk factor for the complication, or not, of those infected.

It is in this sense that Dr. José Carlos Ferreira, an academic, professor and researcher at the University of Concepción and a native of Penco, published a recent study with an international team of researchers in the prestigious MDPI Journal and in the Swiss Gene Journal. .

The investigation published on December 19 and entitled In Silico Prediction of Hub Genes Involved in Diabetic Kidney and COVID-19 Related Disease by Differential Gene Expression and Interactome Analysis (2022), provided promising and highly important results to predict the biological pathways of the central genes that orchestrate the poor prognosis of both pathologies.

In the words of the researcher: “The reason for directing research towards genetic expression responds mainly to the multisystemic impact generated by diabetes and its consequences, such as diabetic nephropathy or kidney disease, among others.”

“It must also be remembered that diabetes is a mainly chronic inflammatory disease but of totally endocrinological origin and, being inflammatory, it is closely related to the intracellular signaling pathways for this purpose, and it is these pathways that orchestrate in a harmful and erratic way, the synthesis of proinflammatory proteins or cytokines in a particular tissue”, points out the professional.

He explains that all this synthesis is previously regulated by specific genes. From this point, the objective of the research group in using bioinformatic analysis as a methodology is mainly because it is one of the most powerful strategies to predict clinically important therapeutic genes and the biological processes to which these genes are directly associated.

A powerful tool for predicting therapeutic genes

For Dr. Rivas, any research that aims to search for and discover differential gene expression levels, predict possible biological pathways, and search for therapeutic targets of interest at the cellular level, must use bioinformatics techniques as a cornerstone. with analysis of biological data.

“The most important part of the process was, in my opinion, when through the analysis of genetic expression we initially identified 13,309 genes in the samples and only 995 genes corresponded to genes with differential expression in the samples with pathology,” he explains.

“Finally, of these 995, only 632 were extremely regulated both positively and negatively in terms of protein expression. Finally, according to criteria of relevance and relationship with the pathological process, it is possible to show that the central genes regulated up and down, they are directly correlated with the synthesis of essential proteins for the immune response, inflammatory response, activation of the complement system, coagulation cascade, cellular energy metabolism and synthesis of cytokines and reactive oxygen species (ROS)”.

In summary, explains the researcher, it is these pathways (inflammatory and immune) that in parallel, act unbalanced in both pathologies. These are intertwined and worsen the evolution of the clinical picture, with terrible outcomes and prognoses.

Therapeutic strategies from cells

As it is for the vast majority of scientists and researchers, the reason behind an investigation is always to contribute to the evolution of humanity, from the mysteries of Biology and Medicine, to elucidate some solutions, strategies and proposals that guide the paths. That becomes a great emotion for them.

It is at this point that Rivas decided to broaden the field of his discipline and focus it, together with a multidisciplinary group, towards the search and prediction of genes of interest. The result was successful and revealed very important information for contributing to a better understanding of the pathophysiological processes of Diabetes and Covid-19.

This investigation traces new horizons towards the production of other investigations oriented to the development of therapies that cover both pathologies.

Well, the new variants of SARS-CoV2 that have been emerging have urged the scientific community to generate scientific knowledge in an accelerated manner. It is at this point that Rivas looks at his investigation with great enthusiasm, hope and pride.

“More studies are necessary and also include important risk factors such as smoking, obesity, geographical areas of people, etc. All these variants, without a doubt, will provide us with more mechanisms and associations between these factors and COVID. Obviously, more genetic information and more biological information will allow us to continue advancing ”, he emphasizes.

And he adds: “it is something really exciting because revealing biological information for the benefit of humanity and contributing and promoting new projects in science is something that fills us scientists with pride, always and at the same time it makes us humble. because we learn to become aware that there is a universe yet to be discovered, a universe that in reality we still do not fully know”.