UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19

Pairo-Castineira, Erola; Rawlik, Konrad; Bretherick, Andrew D; Qi, Ting; Wu, Yang; Nassiri, Isar; McConkey, Glenn A; ... Baillie, J Kenneth; + view all (2023) GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19. Nature , 617 (7962) pp. 764-768. 10.1038/s41586-023-06034-3. Green open access

[thumbnail of Montgomery_GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19_VoR.pdf]
Preview
PDF
Montgomery_GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19_VoR.pdf - Published Version

Download (8MB) | Preview

Abstract

Critical illness in COVID-19 is an extreme and clinically homogeneous disease phenotype that we have previously shown1 to be highly efficient for discovery of genetic associations2. Despite the advanced stage of illness at presentation, we have shown that host genetics in patients who are critically ill with COVID-19 can identify immunomodulatory therapies with strong beneficial effects in this group3. Here we analyse 24,202 cases of COVID-19 with critical illness comprising a combination of microarray genotype and whole-genome sequencing data from cases of critical illness in the international GenOMICC (11,440 cases) study, combined with other studies recruiting hospitalized patients with a strong focus on severe and critical disease: ISARIC4C (676 cases) and the SCOURGE consortium (5,934 cases). To put these results in the context of existing work, we conduct a meta-analysis of the new GenOMICC genome-wide association study (GWAS) results with previously published data. We find 49 genome-wide significant associations, of which 16 have not been reported previously. To investigate the therapeutic implications of these findings, we infer the structural consequences of protein-coding variants, and combine our GWAS results with gene expression data using a monocyte transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) model, as well as gene and protein expression using Mendelian randomization. We identify potentially druggable targets in multiple systems, including inflammatory signalling (JAK1), monocyte-macrophage activation and endothelial permeability (PDE4A), immunometabolism (SLC2A5 and AK5), and host factors required for viral entry and replication (TMPRSS2 and RAB2A).

Type: Article
Title: GWAS and meta-analysis identifies 49 genetic variants underlying critical COVID-19
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06034-3
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06034-3
Language: English
Additional information: © 2023 Springer Nature Limited. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Experimental and Translational Medicine
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10171057
Downloads since deposit
42Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item