ACE2 and TMPRSS2 variants and expression as candidates to sex and country differences in COVID-19 severity in Italy.
Aging (Albany NY)
; 12(11): 10087-10098, 2020 06 05.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-532421
ABSTRACT
As the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) progresses, prognostic markers for early identification of high-risk individuals are an urgent medical need. Italy has one of the highest numbers of SARS-CoV-2-related deaths and one of the highest mortality rates. Worldwide, a more severe course of COVID-19 is associated with older age, comorbidities, and male sex. Hence, we searched for possible genetic components of COVID-19 severity among Italians by looking at expression levels and variants in ACE2 and TMPRSS2 genes, crucial for viral infection.Exome and SNP-array data from a large Italian cohort were used to compare the rare-variants burden and polymorphisms frequency with Europeans and East Asians. Moreover, we looked into gene expression databases to check for sex-unbalanced expression.While we found no significant evidence that ACE2 is associated with disease severity/sex bias, TMPRSS2 levels and genetic variants proved to be possible candidate disease modulators, prompting for rapid experimental validations on large patient cohorts.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Serine Endopeptidases
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Peptidyl-Dipeptidase A
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Topics:
Variants
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Language:
English
Journal:
Aging (Albany NY)
Journal subject:
Geriatrics
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Aging.103415
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