28 New Risk Genes Linked to COVID-19 Severity Identified

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A group of German researchers has identified an additional 28 risk genes, bringing the total count to 51, which can elevate the likelihood of experiencing severe symptoms in COVID-19 infections.

"Knowing about genetic risk factors helps scientists to develop successful drugs and predict risks better," said Dr. Kerstin Ludwig from the Institute of Human Genetics at the University Hospital Bonn.

‘The newly identified genes are associated with severe illness, hospitalization, and infection rates in individuals who contract COVID-19. #covid19 #coronavirus #covidgenes’

To identify the 51 risk factors, the team, part of the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (COVID-19 HGI), performed a meta-analysis of up to 219,692 cases and over 3?million controls.

COVID-19 HGI, launched as a large-scale international project at the start of the pandemic, aims to collate data from individual studies being set up all over the world and investigate it all together. "The consortium has successfully identified 51 risk factors in all, 28 of which are new since the previous publication," said Dr. Axel Schmidt, from the varsity.

Further investigation of how such susceptibility and severity gene map to different pathways would provide mechanistic insights into the human genetic architecture of COVID-19, the team said.

HLA Gene Mutation Enhances T Cell Response to SARS-CoV-2

In a separate study,also published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of California -San Francisco identified a mutation in one of the genes coding for human leukocyte antigen (HLA), that helped virus-killing T cells identify SARS-CoV-2 and launch a lighting attack.

The mutation -- HLA-B*15:01 -- is quite common, carried by about 10 per cent of the study's population. It doesn't prevent the virus from infecting cells but, rather, prevents people from developing any symptoms.

This may explain why some people never have common symptoms like a runny nose or sore throat, even after testing positive for the deadly virus.

Source: IANS