1. Genome-wide analysis in 756,646 individuals provides first genetic evidence that ACE2 expression influences COVID-19 risk and yields genetic risk scores predictive of severe disease
- Author
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Marie V. Coignet, Dylan Sun, Lukas Habegger, Evan Maxwell, Daniel J. Rader, David J. Carey, Katherine A. Siminovitch, Giorgio Sirugo, Anne E. Justice, Joelle Mbatchou, Eli A. Stahl, Gonçalo R. Abecasis, Alexander H. Li, David A. Turissini, Adam E. Locke, Kristin A. Rand, Aris Baras, Joseph B. Leader, Genevieve H.L. Roberts, Ahna R. Girshick, Deepika Sharma, Nilanjana Banerjee, Fabricio S. P. Kury, John D. Overton, Shane McCarthy, Jonathan Marchini, Xiaodong Bai, Eurie L. Hong, Rouel Lanche, Amy Damask, Ashish Yadav, Raghavendran Partha, Shannon R. McCurdy, Miao Zhang, Suganthi Balasubramanian, Hyun Min Kang, Anurag Verma, Marcus B. Jones, Marylyn D. Ritchie, Colm O'Dushlaine, Manuel A. R. Ferreira, Adam J. Mansfield, Anthony Marcketta, Joshua D. Backman, Alan R. Shuldiner, Michael N. Cantor, Tooraj Mirshahi, Lee Dobbyn, Spencer C. Knight, William J Salerno, Harenda Guturu, Jeffrey G. Reid, Julie E. Horowitz, Lauren Gurski, Danny S. Park, Kyoko Watanabe, Catherine A. Ball, Asher K. Haug Baltzell, and Jack A. Kosmicki
- Subjects
2019-20 coronavirus outbreak ,Increased risk ,Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) ,business.industry ,Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ,Genetic variants ,MEDLINE ,Severe disease ,Medicine ,Bioinformatics ,business - Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 enters host cells by binding angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Through a genome-wide association study, we show that a rare variant (MAF = 0.3%, odds ratio 0.60, P=4.5x10-13) that down-regulates ACE2 expression reduces risk of COVID-19 disease, providing human genetics support for the hypothesis that ACE2 levels influence COVID-19 risk. Further, we show that common genetic variants define a risk score that predicts severe disease among COVID-19 cases.
- Published
- 2020
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