The contrasting role of nasopharyngeal angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) transcription in SARS-CoV-2 infection: A cross-sectional study of people tested for COVID-19 in British Columbia, Canada

This article has been Reviewed by the following groups

Read the full article See related articles

Abstract

No abstract available

Article activity feed

  1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.23.20237206: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the University of British Columbia human ethics board (H20-01110).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    20 All analysis was performed in RStudio version 1.2.5042 using the packages: car, ggsci, tidyverse, dataexplorer, ggpubr, lmtest, publish, forcats, matchit, tableone and effects.
    RStudio
    suggested: (RStudio, RRID:SCR_000432)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Unfortunately, the limitation of reverse-causality in cross-sectional study design prevents us from understanding whether the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in positive samples affects host gene expression or host gene expression puts people at risk of viral infection. However, if we make the plausible assumption that at least a single round of viral replication must occur in order for qRT-PCR to generate a positive test result, it suggests that the observed variation in host gene expression of participants who test positive for COVID-19 results from viral replication.25 Numerous studies have demonstrated that coronavirus replication disrupts cellular transcription, as resources required by the cell to produce mRNA are instead sequestered by virus to replicate its genome. 26 Reduced transcription of ACE2 by SARS-CoV, but not HCoV-NL63, in an in vitro model of Vero E6 cell infection was previously suggested as a pathological mechanism.3 Putative SARS-CoV-2 disruption of ACE2 expression could partially explain the apparent association between hypertension, diabetes, and severe COVID-19.27 Answering these questions; however, requires a longitudinal study design to test the temporal effect of SARS-CoV-2 replication on the expression of ACE2 and other implicated host genes. The sample was then restricted to participants who tested positive for COVID-19 to investigate the association between nasopharyngeal ACE2 expression and SARS-CoV-2 RNA load. Bivariate and multivariable analysis both s...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.