Researchers in the United Kingdom report that three in five people of South Asian descent carry a gene linked to a doubling of the risk of respiratory failure from COVID-19.
The study, led by researchers at the University of Oxford, said the high-risk version of the gene, “lysine zipper transcription factor-like 1”, or LZTFL1, “probably” prevents cells lining the airways and lungs from “responding properly to the virus .” The researchers also said the genetic signal doubled the risk of death from Covid-19 in adults under the age of 65.
“But more importantly, it doesn’t affect the immune system, so researchers expect that people who carry this version of the gene will respond normally to the vaccines,” Oxford said in a statement on the results of the study published Thursday. .
“Although we cannot change our genes, our results show that especially people with high-risk genes benefit from vaccination. Since the genetic signal affects the lungs rather than the immune system, this means that the increased risk must be addressed. Canceled by a vaccine,” says the study quoted by James Davies, associate professor of genomics in the Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, Radcliffe.
The study published in Nature Genetics (Identification of LZTFL1 as a candidate effectorgen at the locus of COVID-19 risk: Hughes et al) is a genome-wide association study (GWAS) aimed at identifying candidate genes susceptible to severe Covid-19. 19 It can cause multiple organ failure through the release of cytokines, etc.
The key GWAS finding was that 60 percent of those of South Asian descent carried a high-risk genetic signal, compared with 15 percent of those of European descent. This “partly explains the additional deaths in some UK communities and the impact of COVID-19 on the Indian subcontinent,” the statement said.
The study also found that only 2 percent of people of African-Caribbean descent have a high-risk genetic signal, “meaning that this genetic factor does not fully explain the higher death rates reported for black and ethnic minorities.”
Davies stressed that “socio-economic factors are also likely to be important in explaining why some communities are particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“The genetic factor we discovered explains why some people become seriously ill afterwards Coronavirus infection. It seems that the way the lung responds to infection is critical. This is important because most treatments aim to change the way the immune system responds to the virus.
Study co-leader Jim Hughes, professor of gene regulation, said: “The reason that is so difficult to pin down is that a previously identified genetic signal affects the ‘dark matter’ in the genome. We found that the increased risk was not because of the difference in encryption. The gene for the protein, but because of the difference in the DNA that makes the switch to turn the gene on. It is very difficult to detect which gene is affected by this kind of indirect switching effect. ”
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