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. 2021 Apr;82(4):247-254.
doi: 10.1016/j.humimm.2021.01.008. Epub 2021 Jan 20.

Predictive immunogenetic markers in COVID-19

Mauro de Meira Leite  1 , Faviel F Gonzalez-Galarza  2 , Bruno Conde Costa da Silva  3 , Derek Middleton  4 , Eduardo José Melo Dos Santos  3
Affiliations

Predictive immunogenetic markers in COVID-19

Mauro de Meira Leite et al. Hum Immunol. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Immunorelevant genes are among the most probable modulators of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) progression and prognosis. However, in the few months of the pandemic, data generated on host genetics has been scarce. The present study retrieved data sets of HLA-B alleles, KIR genes and functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in cytokines related to COVID-19 cytokine storm from two publicly available databases: Allele Frequency Net Database and Ensembl, and correlated these frequency data with Case Fatality Rate (CFR) and Daily Death Rates (DDR) across countries. Correlations of eight HLA-B alleles and polymorphisms in three cytokine genes (IL6, IL10, and IL12B) were observed and were mainly associated with DDR. Additionally, HLA-B correlations suggest that differences in allele affinities to SARS-CoV-2 peptides are also associated with DDR. These results may provide rationale for future host genetic marker surveys on COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cytokine polymorphisms; HLA-B; KIR.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
[A]: Number of SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides that are strong binders (SB) to HLA-B alleles. The affinity was determined in silico by NetMHCpan 4.0 software. In the X-axis are presented the eight HLA-B alleles that correlated individually with Daily Death Rate (DDR) as showed in Table 1. [B]: Correlation between the average number of SB of each country (weighted by allele frequencies) and DDR (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = -0.49; p < 0.0001).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
World heatmap showing average Daily Death Rate (DDR) in world regions (according to AFND) and their respective HLA-B alleles frequency distributions in associated graphs. Only the HLA-B alleles and cytokine SNPs that correlated significantly with DDR, after correction for multiple tests, were presented. NAM = North America; EUR = Europe; SAM = South and Central America; WAS = West Asia; CAS = Central Asia; OCE = Oceania; NAF = North Africa; SAS = South Asia; NEA = North-East Asia; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa; SEA = South-East Asia. Australia and Oceania AFND regions were joined under OCE designation. CAS has no genetic data available, OCE and NAF have only HLA-B genetic data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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