Back to Search
Start Over
Interleukin-18 and COVID-19
- Source :
- Epidemiology and Infection
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Cambridge University Press, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Vulnerability to coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 varies due to differences in interferon gamma (IFNγ) immunity. We investigated whether a key modifiable interferon precursor, interleukin-18, was related to COVID-19, overall and by severity, using Mendelian randomisation. We used four established genome-wide significant genetic predictors of interleukin-18 applied to the most recent genome-wide association study of COVID-19 (June 2021) to obtain Mendelian randomisation inverse variance weighted estimates by severity, i.e. any (cases = 112 612, non-cases = 2 474 079), hospitalised (cases = 24 274, non-cases = 2 061 529) and very severe (cases = 8779, non-cases = 1 001 875) COVID-19. To be comprehensive, we also conducted an exploratory analysis for IFNγ and two related cytokines with less well-established genetic predictors, i.e. interleukin-12 and interleukin-23. Genetically predicted interleukin-18 was associated with lower risk of any COVID-19 (odds ratio (OR) 0.96 per standard deviation, 95% confidence interval (0.94–0.99, P-value 0.004)) and of very severe COVID-19 (OR 0.88, 95% CI 0.78–0.999, P-value 0.048). Sensitivity analysis and a more liberal genetic instrument selection gave largely similar results. Few genome-wide significant genetic predictors were available for IFNγ, interleukin-12 or interleukin-23, and no associations with COVID-19 were evident. Interleukin-18 could be a modifiable target to prevent COVID-19 and should be further explored in an experimental design.
- Subjects :
- Male
Original Paper
Epidemiology
SARS-CoV-2
evolutionary biology
Interleukin-18
COVID-19
Mendelian Randomization Analysis
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
Severity of Illness Index
Infectious Diseases
Odds Ratio
Humans
Female
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Mendelian randomisation
Genome-Wide Association Study
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 14694409 and 09502688
- Volume :
- 150
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Epidemiology and Infection
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....19f158b1a1359ed9840a36fbc498787f