Mechanism of β-Catenin in Pulmonary Fibrosis Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Pulmonary fibrosis due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is the leading cause of death in patients with COVID-19. β-catenin, a key molecule in the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, has been shown to be involved in the development of pulmonary fibrosis (e.g., idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, silicosis). In this study, we developed a SARS-CoV-2-infected A549-hACE2 cell model to evaluate the efficacy of the A549-hACE2 monoclonal cell line against SARS-CoV-2 infection. The A549-hACE2 cells were then subjected to either knockdown or overexpression of the effector β-catenin, and the modified cells were subsequently infected with SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, we employed transcriptomics and raw letter analysis approaches to investigate other potential effects of β-catenin on SARS-CoV-2 infection. We successfully established a model of cellular fibrosis induced by SARS-CoV-2 infection in lung-derived cells. This model can be utilized to investigate the molecular biological mechanisms and cellular signaling pathways associated with virus-induced lung fibrosis. The results of our mechanistic studies indicate that β-catenin plays a significant role in lung fibrosis resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Furthermore, the inhibition of β-catenin mitigated the accumulation of mesenchymal stroma in A549-hACE2 cells. Additionally, β-catenin knockdown was found to facilitate multi-pathway crosstalk following SARS-CoV-2 infection. The fact that β-catenin overexpression did not exacerbate cellular fibrosis may be attributed to the activation of PPP2R2B.