Poking COVID-19: Insights on Genomic Constraints among Immune-Related Genes between Qatari and Italian Populations

Host genomic information, specifically genomic variations, may characterize susceptibility to disease and identify people with a higher risk of harm, leading to better targeting of care and vaccination. Italy was the epicentre for the spread of COVID-19 in Europe, the first country to go into a nati...

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Autores principales: Hamdi Mbarek, Massimiliano Cocca, Yasser Al-Sarraj, Chadi Saad, Massimo Mezzavilla, Wadha AlMuftah, Dario Cocciadiferro, Antonio Novelli, Isabella Quinti, Azza AlTawashi, Salvino Salvaggio, Asma AlThani, Giuseppe Novelli, Said I. Ismail
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: MDPI AG 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/d1ec6e900d6b4bbb829743697b312d8c
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Sumario:Host genomic information, specifically genomic variations, may characterize susceptibility to disease and identify people with a higher risk of harm, leading to better targeting of care and vaccination. Italy was the epicentre for the spread of COVID-19 in Europe, the first country to go into a national lockdown and has one of the highest COVID-19 associated mortality rates. Qatar, on the other hand has a very low mortality rate. In this study, we compared whole-genome sequencing data of 14398 adults and Qatari-national to 925 Italian individuals. We also included in the comparison whole-exome sequence data from 189 Italian laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases. We focused our study on a curated list of 3619 candidate genes involved in innate immunity and host-pathogen interaction. Two population-gene metric scores, the Delta Singleton-Cohort variant score (DSC) and Sum Singleton-Cohort variant score (SSC), were applied to estimate the presence of selective constraints in the Qatari population and in the Italian cohorts. Results based on DSC and SSC metrics demonstrated a different selective pressure on three genes (MUC5AC, ABCA7, FLNA) between Qatari and Italian populations. This study highlighted the genetic differences between Qatari and Italian populations and identified a subset of genes involved in innate immunity and host-pathogen interaction.