Renal carcinoma is associated with increased risk of coronavirus infections

The current pandemic COVID-19 has affected most severely to the people with old age, or with comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, COPD, and cancers. Cancer patients are twice more likely to contract the disease because of the malignancy or treatment-related immunosuppression; hence identification of the vulnerable population among these patients is essential. It is speculated that along with ACE2, other auxiliary proteins (DPP4, ANPEP, ENPEP, TMPRSS2) might facilitate the entry of coronaviruses in the host cells. We took a bioinformatics approach to analyze the gene and protein expression data of these coronavirus receptors in human normal and cancer tissues of multiple organs. Here, we demonstrated an extensive RNA and protein expression profiling analysis of these receptors across solid tumors and normal tissues. We found that among all, renal tumor and normal tissues exhibited increased levels of ACE2, DPP4, ANPEP, and ENPEP. Our results revealed that TMPRSS2 may not be the co-receptor for coronavirus in renal carcinoma patients. The receptors’ expression levels were variable in different tumor stage, molecular and immune subtypes of renal carcinoma. In clear cell renal cell carcinomas, coronavirus receptors were associated with high immune infiltration, markers of immunosuppression, and T cell exhaustion. Our study indicates that CoV receptors may play an important role in modulating the immune infiltrate and hence cellular immunity in renal carcinoma. As our current knowledge of pathogenic mechanisms will improve, it may help us in designing focused therapeutic approaches.