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Cells . The Potential Role of Osteopontin and Furin in Worsening Disease Outcomes in COVID-19 Patients with Pre-Existing Diabetes

tetano

Editor, Senior Moderator
Cells


. 2020 Nov 23;9(11):E2528.
doi: 10.3390/cells9112528.
The Potential Role of Osteopontin and Furin in Worsening Disease Outcomes in COVID-19 Patients with Pre-Existing Diabetes


Yvonne Adu-Agyeiwaah[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Maria B Grant[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Alexander G Obukhov[SUP] 2 [/SUP]



Affiliations

Abstract

The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with more than 50 million cases reported globally. Findings have consistently identified an increased severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in individuals with diabetes. Osteopontin, a cytokine-like matrix-associated phosphoglycoprotein, is elevated in diabetes and drives the expression of furin, a proprotein convertase implicated in the proteolytic processing and activation of several precursors, including chemokines, growth factors, hormones, adhesion molecules, and receptors. Elevated serum furin is a signature of diabetes mellitus progression and is associated with a dysmetabolic phenotype and increased risk of diabetes-linked premature mortality. Additionally, furin plays an important role in enhancing the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 by promoting its entry and replication in the host cell. Here, we hypothesize that diabetes-induced osteopontin and furin protein upregulation results in worse outcomes in diabetic patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection owing to the roles of these protein in promoting viral infection and increasing metabolic dysfunction. Thus, targeting the osteopontin-furin axis may be a plausible strategy for reducing mortality in SARS-CoV-2 patients with diabetes.

Keywords: ACE2; coronavirus; diabetes; furin; osteopontin.
 
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