Figure 3.

Expression of DEGs specifically enriched in biological processes of immune response associated with severe progression of COVID-19. (A) Heatmaps depicting the expression of incrementally upregulated or downregulated DEGs involved in immune and inflammation processes. (B) Heatmaps representing the expression of immune- and inflammation-associated DEGs specifically upregulated or downregulated in the severe group. (C, D) The results of the validation of relative mRNA expression of TLR6, SKAP1, MMP9, and LAG3 conducted by RT-qPCR in COVID-19 patients (C) or H1N1 patients (D), compared with HCs. GAPDH expression was used for normalization. The box plots present the relative normalized intensity scaled by the mean value of the HC group. 50% interquartile ranges are shown in box plots. The medians of each group are denoted as the horizontal lines in the boxes. The excluded outliers are marked as dots. The maximum and minimum values excluding outliers are presented as whiskers. p-values were calculated using the Mann-Whitney U test.