Sex-biased expression of the TLR7 gene in severe COVID-19 patients: Insights from transcriptomics and epigenomics.
Environ Res
; 215(Pt 2): 114288, 2022 Dec.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2041735
ABSTRACT
There is abundant epidemiological data indicating that the incidence of severe cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is significantly higher in males than females worldwide. Moreover, genetic variation at the X-chromosome linked TLR7 gene has been associated with COVID-19 severity. It has been suggested that the sex-biased incidence of COVID-19 might be related to the fact that TLR7 escapes X-chromosome inactivation during early embryogenesis in females, thus encoding a doble dose of its gene product compared to males. We analyzed TLR7 expression in two acute phase cohorts of COVID-19 patients that used two different technological platforms, one of them in a multi-tissue context including saliva, nasal, and blood samples, and a third cohort that included different post-infection timepoints of long-COVID-19 patients. We additionally explored methylation patterns of TLR7 using epigenomic data from an independent cohort of COVID-19 patients stratified by severity and sex. In line with genome-wide association studies, we provide supportive evidence indicating that TLR7 has altered CpG methylation patterns and it is consistently downregulated in males compared to females in the most severe cases of COVID-19.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Coronavirus Infections
/
Coronavirus
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
Environ Res
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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