Machine learning approach combined with causal relationship inferring unlocks the shared pathomechanism between COVID-19 and acute myocardial infarction

Increasing evidence suggests that people with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) have a much higher prevalence of Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) than the general population. However, the underlying mechanism is not yet comprehended. Therefore, our study aims to explore the potential secret behind this complication. The gene expression profiles of COVID-19 and AMI were acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. After identifying the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) shared by COVID-19 and AMI, we conducted a series of bioinformatics analytics to enhance our understanding of this issue. Overall, 61 common DEGs were filtered out, based on which we established a powerful diagnostic predictor through 20 mainstream machine-learning algorithms, by utilizing which we could estimate if there is any risk in a specific COVID-19 patient to develop AMI. Moreover, we explored their shared implications of immunology. Most remarkably, through the Bayesian network, we inferred the causal relationships of the essential biological processes through which the underlying mechanism of co-pathogenesis between COVID-19 and AMI was identified. For the first time, the approach of causal relationship inferring was applied to analyzing shared pathomechanism between two relevant diseases, COVID-19 and AMI. Our findings showcase a novel mechanistic insight into COVID-19 and AMI, which may benefit future preventive, personalized, and precision medicine.Graphical abstract.