COVID virus alters the activation of 100 vitamin D related genes in the lung

Created April 2021

Evidence of a dysregulated vitamin D endocrine system in SARS-CoV-2 infected patient's lung cells

Sci Rep . 2021 Apr 21;11(1):8570. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87703-z.

Bijesh George 1 2, Revikumar Amjesh 1, Aswathy Mary Paul 1 2, T R Santhoshkumar 1, Madhavan Radhakrishna Pillai 3, Rakesh Kumar 4 5 6

Up and Down regulation (One of scores of charts in the PDF)

This preprint of this study was reviewed in Medical News Net Dec 22, 2020 * Health problems that have learned to de-regulate the Vitamin D metabolism require higher blood levels of Vitamin D * * COVID-19 affects the CYP27A1 gene, which results in less Vitamin D to be produced in the blood * The CYP27A1 gene can be bypassed in two ways * Topical or mucosal Vitamin D - dissolve Vitamin D powder in water or use nanoemulsion * Semi-activated Vitamin D (Calcidiol) which was found to be very successful in one clinical trial * Note: Calcidiol is high cost and prescription-only for humans, but is available at low cost to animal doctors * There are 10+ ways to increase the Vitamin D Receptor activation** 1. Genetics category listing contains the following {include} --- 1. VitaminDWiki - Vitamin D Receptor deactivated by some health problems - many studies

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Table of contents

Although a defective vitamin D endocrine system has been widely suspected to be associated in SARS-CoV-2 pathobiology, the status of the vitamin D endocrine system and vitamin D-modulated genes in lung cells of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 remains unknown. To understand the significance of the vitamin D endocrine system in SARS-CoV-2 pathobiology, computational approaches were applied to transcriptomic datasets from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) cells of such patients or healthy individuals. Levels of vitamin D receptor, retinoid X receptor, and CYP27A1 in BALF cells of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 were found to be reduced. Additionally, 107 differentially expressed, predominantly downregulated genes, as potentially modulated by vitamin D endocrine system, were identified in transcriptomic datasets from patient's cells. Further analysis of differentially expressed genes provided eight novel genes with a conserved motif with vitamin D-responsive elements, implying the role of both direct and indirect mechanisms of gene expression by the dysregulated vitamin D endocrine system in SARS-CoV-2-infected cells. Protein-protein interaction network of differentially expressed vitamin D-modulated genes were enriched in the immune system, NF-κB/cytokine signaling, and cell cycle regulation as top predicted pathways that might be affected in the cells of such patients. In brief, the results presented here provide computational evidence to implicate a dysregulated vitamin D endocrine system in the pathobiology of SARS-CoV-2 infection.