Epidemiological and genetic studies on COVID-19 are currently hindered by inconsistent and limited testing policies to confirm SARS-CoV-2 infection. Recently, it was shown that it is possible to predict COVID-19 cases using cross-sectional self-reported disease-related symptoms. Here, we demonstrate that this COVID-19 prediction model has reasonable and consistent performance across multiple independent cohorts and that our attempt to improve upon this model did not result in improved predictions. Using the existing COVID- 19 prediction model, we then conducted a GWAS on the predicted phenotype using a total of 1,865 predicted cases and 29,174 controls. While we did not find any common, largeeffect variants that reached genome-wide significance, we do observe suggestive genetic associations at two SNPs (rs11844522, p = 1.9x10-7; rs5798227, p = 2.2x10-7). Explorative analyses furthermore suggest that genetic variants associated with other viral infectious diseases do not overlap with COVID-19 susceptibility and that severity of COVID-19 may have a different genetic architecture compared to COVID-19 susceptibility. This study represents a first effort that uses a symptom-based predicted phenotype as a proxy for COVID-19 in our pursuit of understanding the genetic susceptibility of the disease. We conclude that the inclusion of symptom-based predicted cases could be a useful strategy in a scenario of limited testing, either during the current COVID-19 pandemic or any future viral outbreak.

van Blokland, I.V., Lanting, P., Ori, A.P.S., Vonk, J.M., Warmerdam, R.C.A., Herkert, J.C., et al. (2021). Using symptom-based case predictions to identify host genetic factors that contribute to COVID-19 susceptibility. PLOS ONE, 16(8) [10.1371/journal.pone.0255402].

Using symptom-based case predictions to identify host genetic factors that contribute to COVID-19 susceptibility

White S.;Mierau J. O.;Moscati A.;Chang Y.;Jung J.;Ryu S.;Benetti E.;Fallerini C.;Furini S.;Pinto A. M.;Baldassarri M.;Mari F.;Renieri A.;Croci S.;Tita R.;Frullanti E.;Marques E.;de Jong H.;Hughes C.;Lee S.;
2021-01-01

Abstract

Epidemiological and genetic studies on COVID-19 are currently hindered by inconsistent and limited testing policies to confirm SARS-CoV-2 infection. Recently, it was shown that it is possible to predict COVID-19 cases using cross-sectional self-reported disease-related symptoms. Here, we demonstrate that this COVID-19 prediction model has reasonable and consistent performance across multiple independent cohorts and that our attempt to improve upon this model did not result in improved predictions. Using the existing COVID- 19 prediction model, we then conducted a GWAS on the predicted phenotype using a total of 1,865 predicted cases and 29,174 controls. While we did not find any common, largeeffect variants that reached genome-wide significance, we do observe suggestive genetic associations at two SNPs (rs11844522, p = 1.9x10-7; rs5798227, p = 2.2x10-7). Explorative analyses furthermore suggest that genetic variants associated with other viral infectious diseases do not overlap with COVID-19 susceptibility and that severity of COVID-19 may have a different genetic architecture compared to COVID-19 susceptibility. This study represents a first effort that uses a symptom-based predicted phenotype as a proxy for COVID-19 in our pursuit of understanding the genetic susceptibility of the disease. We conclude that the inclusion of symptom-based predicted cases could be a useful strategy in a scenario of limited testing, either during the current COVID-19 pandemic or any future viral outbreak.
2021
van Blokland, I.V., Lanting, P., Ori, A.P.S., Vonk, J.M., Warmerdam, R.C.A., Herkert, J.C., et al. (2021). Using symptom-based case predictions to identify host genetic factors that contribute to COVID-19 susceptibility. PLOS ONE, 16(8) [10.1371/journal.pone.0255402].
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11365/1278577
 Attenzione

Attenzione! I dati visualizzati non sono stati sottoposti a validazione da parte dell'ateneo