Comparative Transcriptomic Analysis of Gene Expression Patterns in Neutrophils from Rheumatoid Arthritis and COVID-19

RA neutrophils show 11,355 differentially expressed genes, with 90 genes changing at |log2 fold change| ≥ 2 (p<0.05), dominated by interferon and antiviral programs.

• Why it matters: Overlapping immune mechanisms between rheumatoid arthritis and COVID-19 are suggested, but shared versus disease-specific neutrophil transcriptional features remain unclear.
• What they did: Public neutrophil RNA-seq count datasets (GSE116899 for RA vs healthy controls; GSE212041 and a severe-versus-convalescent set from GSE272381 and GSE227116 for COVID-19) were analyzed with DESeq2, fgsea (Hallmark), and topGO.
• The result: COVID-19 neutrophils had 420 DEGs and no Hallmark gene sets at adjusted p<0.05; 46 of the 90 RA DEGs shifted in the same direction without significance, while 27 shifted oppositely, with OAS1, OAS3, and SIGLEC1 aligning in the second COVID-19 comparison.

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