Infertility Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Department of Physics "Giuseppe Occhialini", University of Milan-Bicocca Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 20126 Milan, Italy.
Cells. 2021 Jun 12;10(6):1480. doi: 10.3390/cells10061480.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a global pandemic, is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is the receptor for SARS-CoV-2 and transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) facilitates ACE2-mediated virus entry. Moreover, the expression of in the testes of infertile men is higher than normal, which indicates that infertile men may be susceptible to be infected and SARS-CoV-2 may cause reproductive disorder through the pathway induced by and . Little is known about the pathway regulation of and expression in male reproductive disorder. Since the regulation of gene expression is mediated by microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) at the post-transcriptional level, the aim of this study was to analyze the dysregulated miRNA-lncRNA interactions of and in male reproductive disorder. Using bioinformatics analysis, we speculate that the predicted miRNAs including , , , and as regulators of and as a modulator of are associated with male infertility. The lncRNAs with a tissue-specific expression for testis including GRM7-AS3, ARHGAP26-AS1, BSN-AS1, KRBOX1-AS1, CACNA1C-IT3, AC012361.1, FGF14-IT1, AC012494.1, and GS1-24F4.2 were predicted. The identified miRNAs and lncRNAs are proposed as potential biomarkers to study the possible association between COVID-19 and male infertility. This study encourages further studies of miRNA-lncRNA interactions to explain the molecular mechanisms of male infertility in COVID-19 patients.
新型冠状病毒病（COVID-19）是一种全球性的大流行病，由严重急性呼吸系统综合征冠状病毒 2 型（SARS-CoV-2）引起。血管紧张素转换酶 2（ACE2）是 SARS-CoV-2 的受体，跨膜丝氨酸蛋白酶 2（TMPRSS2）促进 ACE2 介导的病毒进入。此外，不育男性睾丸中的表达高于正常水平，这表明不育男性可能容易感染，SARS-CoV-2 可能通过和诱导的途径引起生殖障碍。男性生殖障碍中表达的通路调节知之甚少。由于基因表达的调节是在转录后水平由 microRNAs（miRNAs）和长链非编码 RNA（lncRNAs）介导的，因此本研究的目的是分析男性生殖障碍中失调的 miRNA-lncRNA 相互作用。通过生物信息学分析，我们推测包括 miR-204-5p、miR-378a-3p、miR-141-3p 和 miR-451a 在内的预测 miRNAs 作为和的调节剂，以及睾丸组织特异性表达的 lncRNAs 包括 GRM7-AS3、ARHGAP26-AS1、BSN-AS1、KRBOX1-AS1、CACNA1C-IT3、AC012361.1、FGF14-IT1、AC012494.1 和 GS1-24F4.2，可能与男性不育有关。鉴定的 miRNAs 和 lncRNAs 被提议作为潜在的生物标志物，以研究 COVID-19 与男性不育之间的可能关联。本研究鼓励进一步研究 miRNA-lncRNA 相互作用，以解释 COVID-19 患者男性不育的分子机制。
