Short Communication
Loss-of-function mutations in IFNAR2 in COVID-19 severe infection susceptibility

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgar.2021.06.005Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Large WGS studies have identified the IFNAR2 locus as a risk factor associated with severe COVID-19 infection.

  • We report carriers of stop-gain IFNAR2 (NM_000874:exon9:c.C966A:p.Y322X) in our cohort of severe COVID-19 patients.

  • IFNAR2 burden testing identified enrichment of rare-to-common consequential variants in our data set of severe hospitalised patients.

  • We believe IFNAR2 LOF variants may not only play a role in COVID-19 severity but also in the response to vaccination.

ABSTRACT

Recent COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) host genetics studies suggest enrichment of mutations in genes involved in the regulation of type I and type III interferon (IFN) immunity in patients with severe COVID-19 infection. We performed whole-genome sequencing analysis of samples obtained from patients participating in the ongoing ODYSSEY phase 3 study of hospitalised patients with severe COVID-19 infection receiving supplemental oxygen support. We focused on burden testing of categories of rare and common loss-of-function (LOF) variants in all of the IFN pathway genes, specifically with MAF < 0.1% and MAF < 1%. In a model including LOF and missense variants (MAF < 1%), we report a significant signal in both INFAR1 and IFNAR2. We report carriers of rare variants in our COVID-19 cohort, including a stop-gain IFNAR2 (NM_000874:exon9:c.C966A:p.Y322X) amongst carriers of several other IFNAR rare nonsynonymous variants. Furthermore, we report an increased allelic frequency of common IFNAR2 variants in our data, reported also by the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative.

Keywords

COVID-19
Therapeutics
Whole-genome sequencing
Viral genetics
Viral resistance

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