Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2021; 27(21): 2850-2870
Published online Jun 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i21.2850
Insight into molecular mechanisms underlying hepatic dysfunction in severe COVID-19 patients using systems biology
Sarah Musa Hammoudeh, Arabella Musa Hammoudeh, Poorna Manasa Bhamidimarri, Bassam Mahboub, Rabih Halwani, Qutayba Hamid, Mohamed Rahmani, Rifat Hamoudi
Sarah Musa Hammoudeh, Poorna Manasa Bhamidimarri, Rabih Halwani, Qutayba Hamid, Mohamed Rahmani, Rifat Hamoudi, Sharjah Institute for Medical Research, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab Emirates
Sarah Musa Hammoudeh, Arabella Musa Hammoudeh, Bassam Mahboub, Rabih Halwani, Qutayba Hamid, Mohamed Rahmani, Rifat Hamoudi, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, Sharjah 27272, United Arab Emirates
Arabella Musa Hammoudeh, General Surgery Department, Tawam Hospital, SEHA, Al-Ain 15258, United Arab Emirates
Bassam Mahboub, Rashid Hospital, 315 Umm Hurair Second, Dubai Health Authority, Dubai 4545, United Arab Emirates
Qutayba Hamid, Meakins-Christie Laboratories, McGill University, Quebec H4A 3J1, Montreal, Canada
Rifat Hamoudi, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science, University College London, London W1W 7TY, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Hammoudeh SM, Hammoudeh AM, Rahmani M, and Hamoudi R were responsible for the conception, design, and development of the methodology; Hammoudeh SM, Hammoudeh AM, Bhamidimarri PM, Rahmani M, and Hamoudi R were responsible for the application of the methodology, the bioinformatics analysis and data interpretation; Hammoudeh SM, Hammoudeh AM, Bhamidimarri PM, Mahboub B, Halwani R, Hamid Q, Rahmani M, and Hamoudi R were responsible for writing and reviewing the manuscript; Hamoudi R, Rahmani M, Hamid Q, and Halwani R were responsible for the supervision of the study; The final manuscript was approved by all authors.
Supported by The University of Sharjah, No. CoV19-0308, No. CoV19-0307 and No: 1901090254; Sharjah Research Academy, No: MED001; and Al-Jalila Foundation Seed Grant, No. AJF202019.
Institutional review board statement: The committee has granted an ethical approval for the above mentioned request and following documents.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: All the transcriptomic data is shared in Gene Expression Omnibus with data sets GSE150316 and GSE112356. All other processed data are shared in the manuscript as tables or figures.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Rifat Hamoudi, PhD, Professor, Sharjah Institute for Medical Research, College of Medicine, University of Sharjah, P.O. Box, Sharjah 27272, United Arab Emirates. rhamoudi@sharjah.ac.ae
Received: February 6, 2021
Peer-review started: February 6, 2021
First decision: March 14, 2021
Revised: March 30, 2021
Accepted: May 10, 2021
Article in press: May 10, 2021
Published online: June 7, 2021
Processing time: 109 Days and 12.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Liver dysfunction was frequently observed in severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. However, the mechanism through which severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 potentially elicits liver function abnormality is not fully understood. We report a thorough analysis of changes occurring at the gene expression level in liver tissue of severe COVID-19 patients. Our findings suggest that severe COVID-19 patients may have a lower hepatic detoxification capacity and may experience liver tissue remodeling resulting in liver dysfunction.