1. Variant-genetic and transcript-expression analysis showed a role for the chemokine-receptor CCR5 in COVID-19 severity.
- Author
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Cuesta-Llavona E, Gómez J, Albaiceta GM, Amado-Rodríguez L, García-Clemente M, Gutiérrez-Rodríguez J, López-Alonso I, Hermida T, Enríquez AI, Hernández-González C, Gil-Peña H, Domínguez-Garrido E, Pérez-Oliveira S, Alvarez V, López-Larrea C, Suarez-Alvarez B, Tranche S, Jimeno-Demuth FJ, and Coto E
- Subjects
- Aged, Aged, 80 and over, COVID-19 diagnosis, COVID-19 virology, Case-Control Studies, Female, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Host-Pathogen Interactions, Humans, Intensive Care Units, Male, Middle Aged, Patient Admission, Phenotype, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, Severity of Illness Index, COVID-19 genetics, Genetic Variation, Receptors, CCR5 genetics, SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity
- Abstract
The chemokine receptor CCR5 has been implicated in COVID-19. CCR5 and its ligands are overexpressed in patients. The pharmacological targeting of CCR5 would improve the COVID-19 severity. We sought to investigate the role of the CCR5-Δ32 variant (rs333) in COVID-19. The CCR5-Δ32 was genotyped in 801 patients (353 in the intensive care unit, ICU) and 660 healthy controls, and the deletion was significantly less frequent in hospitalysed COVID-19 than in healthy controls (p = 0.01, OR = 0.66, 95%CI = 0.49-0.88). Of note, we did not find homozygotes among the patients, compared to 1% of the controls. The CCR5 transcript was measured in leukocytes from 85 patients and 40 controls. We found a significantly higher expression of the CCR5 transcript among the patients, with significant difference when comparing the non-deletion carriers (controls = 35; patients = 81; p = 0.01). ICU-patients showed non-significantly higher expression than no-ICU cases. Our study points to CCR5 as a genetic marker for COVID-19. The pharmacological targeting of CCR5 should be a promising treatment for COVID-19., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2021
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