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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.

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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

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