A detailed understanding of the molecular mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis is still elusive, and there is a need to address its deadly nature and to design effective therapeutics. Here, we present a study that elucidates the interplay between the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses' and host's miRNAs, an epigenetic regulator, as a mode of pathogenesis; and we explored how the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 infections differ in terms of their miRNA-mediated interactions with the host and the implications this has in terms of disease complexity. We have utilized computational approaches to predict potential host and viral miRNAs and their possible roles in different important functional pathways. We have identified several putative host antiviral miRNAs that can target the SARS viruses and also predicted SARS viruses-encoded miRNAs targeting host genes. In silico predicted targets were also integrated with SARS-infected human cell microarray and RNA-seq gene expression data. A comparison between the host miRNA binding profiles on 67 different SARS-CoV-2 genomes from 24 different countries with respective country's normalized death count surprisingly uncovered some miRNA clusters, which are associated with increased death rates. We have found that induced cellular miRNAs can be both a boon and a bane to the host immunity, as they have possible roles in neutralizing the viral threat; conversely, they can also function as proviral factors. On the other hand, from over representation analysis, our study revealed that although both SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viral miRNAs could target broad immunesignaling pathways; only some of the SARS-CoV-2 miRNAs are found to uniquely target some immune-signaling pathways, such as autophagy, IFN-I signaling, etc., which might Khan et al. miRNA Roles in SARS-CoV-2 Infection suggest their immune-escape mechanisms for prolonged latency inside some hosts without any symptoms of COVID-19. Furthermore, SARS-CoV-2 can modulate several important cellular pathways that might lead to the increased anomalies in patients with comorbidities like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, breathing complications, etc. This might suggest that miRNAs can be a key epigenetic modulator behind the overcomplications amongst the COVID-19 patients. Our results support that miRNAs of host and SARS-CoV-2 can indeed play a role in the pathogenesis which can be further concluded with more experiments. These results will also be useful in designing RNA therapeutics to alleviate the complications from COVID-19.

An incomplete understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind impairment of lung pathobiology by COVID-19 complicates its clinical management. In this study, we analyzed the gene expression pattern of cells obtained from biopsies of COVID-19-affected patient and compared to the effects observed in typical SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-infected cell-lines. We then compared gene expression patterns of COVID-19-affected lung tissues and SARS-CoV-2-infected cell-lines and mapped those to known lung-related molecular networks, including hypoxia induced responses, lung development, respiratory processes, cholesterol biosynthesis and surfactant metabolism; all of which are suspected to be downregulated following SARS-CoV-2 infection based on the observed symptomatic impairments. Network analyses suggest that SARS-CoV-2 infection might lead to acute lung injury in COVID-19 by affecting surfactant proteins and their regulators SPD, SPC, and TTF1 through NSP5 and NSP12; thrombosis regulators PLAT, and EGR1 by ORF8 and NSP12; and mitochondrial NDUFA10, NDUFAF5, and SAMM50 through NSP12. Furthermore, hypoxia response through HIF-1 signaling might also be targeted by SARS-CoV-2 proteins. Drug enrichment analysis of dysregulated genes has allowed us to propose novel therapies, including lung surfactants, respiratory stimulants, sargramostim, and oseltamivir. Our study presents a distinct mechanism of probable virus induced lung damage apart from cytokine storm.

Salt stress dramatically reduces crop yield and quality, but the molecular mechanisms underlying salt tolerance remain largely unknown. To explore the wheat transcriptional response to salt stress, we performed high-throughput transcriptome sequencing of 10-day old wheat roots under normal condition and 6, 12, 24 and 48 h after salt stress (HASS) in both a salt-tolerant cultivar and salt-sensitive cultivar. The results demonstrated global gene expression reprogramming with 36,804 genes that were up- or down-regulated in wheat roots under at least one stress condition compared with the controls and revealed the specificity and complexity of the functional pathways between the two cultivars. Further analysis showed that substantial expression partitioning of homeologous wheat genes occurs when the plants are subjected to salt stress, accounting for approximately 63.9% (2,537) and 66.1% (2,624) of the homeologous genes in ‘Chinese Spring’ (CS) and ‘Qing Mai 6’ (QM). Interestingly, 143 salt-responsive genes have been duplicated and tandemly arrayed on chromosomes during wheat evolution and polyploidization events, and the expression patterns of 122 (122/143, 85.3%) tandem duplications diverged dynamically over the time-course of salinity exposure. In addition, constitutive expression or silencing of target genes in Arabidopsis and wheat further confirmed our high-confidence salt stress-responsive candidates.

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The government of Bangladesh has long been striving to increase food security and to reduce poverty and malnutrition. In this regard, home gardens can play an important role in providing enhanced food supply and increased diversity of food to some extent. Studies on niche/ecosystem based homestead gardening were carried out at Lahirirhat Farming Systems Research and Development site, Rangpur under the On-Farm Research Division of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute during 2008-2009, resulting in the development of a year round production model, known as the Rangpur (Syedpur) model, for Tista Meander Floodplain agro-ecological region of Bangladesh. The objective of the study was to utilize the homestead resources in scientific ways for producing fresh vegetables and fruits over space and time and to enhance the nutritional supplies for the family throughout the year. A total of 12 households were selected from landless (no cultivable land), marginal (0.2-0.6 ha) and small (0.61-1.0 ha) farmer groups and seven production niches were intervened for round the year production following the Rangpur model.The niches were open sunny place, roof top, trellis, fence, boundary, marshy land and partially shady place. After the intervention, the highest amount of vegetables was produced by the small farmer groups (511 kg/year) followed by marginal (499 kg/year) and landless (422 kg/year) farmers. The yearly vegetable requirements of farmers were largely met by the homestead garden with a supply between 55 and 79 kg/head/year compared with the bench mark level of 21-30 kg/head/year before the intervention. The highest total income (BDT 5030/year) and net income (BDT 4290/year) were obtained from homestead at small farmers followed by marginal and landless farmers. From this study it is evident that the target farmers were able to fulfill their daily requirement of vegetables in most parts of the year by following the Rangpur model. This suggests an increase in food security and a reduction in malnutrition of farm families in the target households of Rangpur region in Bangladesh. The upscaling of the production model based on niche/ecosystem in different poverty stricken regions of Bangladesh is recommended to achieve food security and malnutrition reduction.