Correlation between interleukin gene polymorphisms and current prevalence and mortality rates due to novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019) in 23 countries.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection may rely on a potential genetic background for the variations in the inflammatory response. We aimed to investigate the possible correlation between polymorphisms in the IL-6 gene at rs1800796/rs1800795, in IL-6R at rs2228145, in IL-10 at rs1800896 and rs1800871, in IL-17 at rs2275913 and rs763780 loci, and COVID-19 prevalence and mortality rates among populations of 23 countries. METHODS: We searched the literature for polymorphisms in China, Japan, India, Spain, Mexico, Sweden, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, Poland, Italy, South Africa, Netherlands, Greece, Germany, UK, Iran, Finland, Czechia, Tunisia, Norway, Egypt, Croatia. We recorded the prevalence and mortality rates (per million) caused by the Coronavirus infection recorded on 7th September 2020 and 6th December 2020. RESULTS: There was a significant positive correlation between the frequency of AG genotype of rs1800896 and prevalence recorded on 6th December 2020 (r 0.53, r2 0.28, p < .05). There was a significant negative correlation between the mortality rates recorded on 7th September, and the AG genotype of rs2275913 (r -0.51, r2 0.26, p < .05). There was a significant positive correlation between the prevalence recorded on 6th December, and TT genotype at rs763780 (r 0.65, r20.42, p < .05) while a negative correlation between prevalence and TC genotype at rs763780 (r -0.66, r2 0.43, p < .05). Also, a significant negative correlation was found between mortality rates recorded on 6th December 2020 and CC genotype at rs763780 (r -0.56, r2 0.31, p < .05). CONCLUSION: The variations in prevalence of COVID-19 and its mortality rates among countries may be explained by the polymorphisms at rs1800896 in IL-10, rs2275913 in IL-17A, and rs763780 loci in the IL-17F gene.