Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Sep 17:12:709388.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2021.709388. eCollection 2021.

A Role of Variance in Interferon Genes to Disease Severity in COVID-19 Patients

Leonid Gozman  1 , Kellie Perry  2 , Dimitri Nikogosov  3 , Ilya Klabukov  4 , Artem Shevlyakov  3 , Ancha Baranova  2   3   5
Affiliations
Review

A Role of Variance in Interferon Genes to Disease Severity in COVID-19 Patients

Leonid Gozman et al. Front Genet. .

Abstract

The rapid rise and global consequences of the novel coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) have again brought the focus of the scientific community on the possible host factors involved in patient response and outcome to exposure to the virus. The disease severity remains highly unpredictable, and individuals with none of the aforementioned risk factors may still develop severe COVID-19. It was shown that genotype-related factors like an ABO Blood Group affect COVID-19 severity, and the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 was higher for patients with blood type A and lower for patients with blood type O. Currently it is not clear which specific genes are associated with COVID-19 severity. The comparative analysis of COVID-19 and other viral infections allows us to predict that the variants within the interferon pathway genes may serve as markers of the magnitude of immune response to specific pathogens. In particular, various members of Class III interferons (lambda) are reviewed in detail.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; differential activity; interferons; signaling; type I interferon.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Authors DN, AS, and AB were employed by the company Atlas Biomed Group Limited. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Location of common SNPs in IFNL4 Locus on Chromosome 19, and the map of IFNL4 exons. Adapted from: Stephen M. Laidlaw and Lynn B. Dustin, 2014, with changes.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Schematic map of Jak-STAT pathway during an immune response with type 1-3 interferon antiviral activity.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Abbasi A. Z., Kiyani D. A., Hamid S. M., Saalim M., Fahim A., Jalal N. (2021). Spiking Dependence of SARS‐CoV‐2 Pathogenicity on TMPRSS2. J. Med. Virol. 93, 4205–4218. 10.1002/jmv.26911 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Acharya D., Liu G., Gack M. U. (2020). Dysregulation of Type I Interferon Responses in COVID-19. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 20 (7), 397–398. 10.1038/s41577-020-0346-x - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Agwa S. H. A., Kamel M. M., Elghazaly H., Abd Elsamee A. M., Hafez H., Girgis S. A., et al. (2021). Association between Interferon-Lambda-3 Rs12979860, TLL1 Rs17047200 and DDR1 Rs4618569 Variant Polymorphisms with the Course and Outcome of SARS-CoV-2 Patients. Genes 12 (6), 830. 10.3390/genes12060830 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aka P. V., Kuniholm M. H., Pfeiffer R. M., Wang A. S., Tang W., Chen S., et al. (2014). Association of the IFNL4-Δg Allele with Impaired Spontaneous Clearance of Hepatitis C Virus. J. Infect. Dis. 209 (3), 350–354. 10.1093/infdis/jit433 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Amanzada A., Kopp W., Spengler U., Ramadori G., Mihm S. (2013). Interferon-λ4 (IFNL4) Transcript Expression in Human Liver Tissue Samples. PloS one 8 (12), e84026. 10.1371/journal.pone.0084026 - DOI - PMC - PubMed