Study reveals the roles of a nucleic acid sensor for COVID-19 in pan-cancer

Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7), a severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus's nucleic acid sensor, was discovered to be aberrantly expressed in many types of cancers. However, its expression pattern across cancers and association with COVID-19 (or its causing virus SARS-CoV-2) has not been systematically studied.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was a disease mainly characterized by damage to the respiratory system caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Recent studies suggest that cancer was a risk factor for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

In this study, the authors of this article propose a computational framework to comprehensively study the roles of TLR7 in COVID-19 and pan-cancers at genetic, gene expression, protein, epigenetic, and single-cell levels. As a result, TLR7 expression was found to be higher in the lung of mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 than that in the control group.

This study reveals the roles of TLR7, a nucleic acid sensor for COVID-19 in pan-cancer. These findings might be necessary for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection and alleviating cytokine storms in infected cancer patients.