Immunopathogenic Overlap and Shared Therapeutic Targets for Covid-19 and Tuberculosis Predicted from Transcriptomic Meta-Analysis

Current and previous tuberculosis (TB) increase the risk for severe and fatal COVID-19. To identify mechanisms of immunopathogenic interaction which may increase severity of COVID-19 and determine the impact of co-infection on subsequent TB progression, we performed a systematic review and patient-level meta-analysis of COVID-19 transcriptomic signatures, spanning mild-critical disease, from whole blood, PBMCs and BALF. Thirty-five eligible signatures were profiled on 1181 RNA-seq samples from 853 individuals, across the spectrum of TB infection. Twenty COVID-19 gene-signatures had significantly higher “COVID-19 risk scores” in active and progressive TB compared with non-progressing latent infection and uninfected controls (p