The Sars-CoV-2 virus is a previously uncharacterized coronavirus and causative agent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gene expression analysis followed by pathway analysis helps researchers to find possible key targets present in biological pathways of host cells that are targeted by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This review considers the peripheral blood mononuclear cell line (PBMC) and the normal human bronchial epithelial (NHBE) cell line, both of which support SARS-CoV-2 viral replication. Pathway analysis between the healthy and patient samples of the respective cell lines shall provide useful insights on the COVID-19 disease. Initially, the datasets from the respective cell lines were collected from the NCBI databank. These datasets underwent further analysis and were mapped and aligned to the human reference genome. This outputs the file in the BAM format. The BAM files along with the human reference genome in the GFF format were uploaded to an open-source software called OmicsBox 2.0 for differential gene expression analysis. This resulted in the generation of a table containing the differentially expressed genes which were upregulated and downregulated. These gene lists were uploaded to various pathway analyzers that map the significant genes to the most significant pathways. In this project, KOBAS 3.0 and Enrichr were used for pathway analysis. The pathways obtained from the above-mentioned pathway analyzers were further narrowed down by manual comparison. It was observed that many pathways were similar between the NHBE and PBMC cell lines. However, they were also different in terms of their overall nature. In this project, many patterns were seen through the pathways obtained, however, further optimization and functionality studies must be performed in order to establish conclusive results on the scope of the COVID-19 disease. Expanding research on the scope of the disease by going back to the basics will generate new and valuable information about the virus. This knowledge will help us combat the disease in a better and appropriate manner.
899P Gene expression analysis of primary and recurrent laryngeal tumors reveals disruption in key regulatory pathways
