Association of Several Innate Immune Response Gene Polymorphisms with COVID-19 in Turkish Population

Abstract

Aim: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 virus (SARS-CoV-2), has spread globally. Gender and age have been established as risk factors for severe COVID-19. However, these factors do not fully explain the effects on disease risk. According to researchers, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on multiple genes could affect the severity of COVID-19. The progression of viral diseases depends on the characteristics of the patient's innate immunity. The effectiveness of the innate immune system depends on the patient's genetic factors, including SNPs in the TLR, CCR5, and RIG-I genes. In this study, we researched the association of allele and genotype frequency in SNPs of COVID-19 patients with age and gender. Materials and Methods: In our study, 200 patients with moderate COVID-19 were included. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of TLR3 (rs3775291, rs3775290, rs5743305), TLR7 (rs179008), TLR8 (rs3764880), RIG-I (rs12006123), and CCR5 (rs1799987) were studied. SNPs were determined by restriction fragment length polymerase chain reaction (RFLP-PCR) methods. Results: In the COVID-19 patients, we examined the patients were evaluated in terms of allele and genotype frequencies and the association between some parameters like age, and gender. In our results, TLR3 rs5743305 AA genotype frequency (p=0.03) and TLR7 rs179008 AA genotype frequency (p=0.03) were found to be significant in terms of age and gender. Conclusions: These SNP data is assessed against disease risk to plan personalized pharmacological therapy for COVID-19 patients.The findings from this study will be useful for genome-wide association studies (GWAS).