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Abstract Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, has led to major public health crises worldwide. Several studies have reported the comprehensive mRNA expression analysis of immune-related genes in patients with COVID-19, using blood samples, to understand its pathogenesis; however, the characteristics of RNA expression in COVID-19 and bacterial sepsis have not been compared. The current study aimed to address this gap. Methods RNA-sequencing and bioinformatics analyses were used to compare the transcriptome expression of whole blood samples from patients with COVID-19 and patients with sepsis who were admitted to the intensive care unit of Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine. Results The COVID-19 and sepsis cohorts showed upregulation of mitochondrial- and neutrophil-related transcripts, respectively. Compared with that in the control cohort, neutrophil-related transcripts were upregulated in both the COVID-19 and sepsis cohorts. In contrast, mitochondrial-related transcripts were upregulated in the COVID-19 cohort and downregulated in the sepsis cohort, compared to those in the control cohort. Moreover, transcript levels of the pro-apoptotic genes BAK1, CYCS, BBC3, CASP7, and CASP8 were upregulated in the COVID-19 cohort, whereas those of anti-apoptotic genes, such as BCL2L11 and BCL2L1, were upregulated in the sepsis cohort. Conclusions This study clarified the differential expression of transcripts related to neutrophils and mitochondria in sepsis and COVID-19 conditions. Mitochondrial-related transcripts were downregulated in sepsis than in COVID-19 conditions, and our results indicated suboptimal intrinsic apoptotic features in sepsis samples compared with that in COVID-19 samples. This study is expected to contribute to the development of specific treatments for COVID-19. |
