(ANSA) – ROME, JANUARY 17 – A protective gene has been discovered (rs10774671-G), which defends against the risk of contracting Covid in a severe form.
It is the result of a work published in the journal Nature Genetics and conducted by researchers from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm in collaboration with Canadian and American colleagues, who started from the knowledge collected so far (in previously published studies) on genetic sequences protective against the SARS-CoV-2 infection to isolate a single gene underlying the protective effect.
The study involved 2,787 COVID-19 patients of African descent admitted to hospital and 130,997 healthy people as a control group. The results were compared with those of a previous large study of individuals of European descent. Until now, a large genetic protective sequence against Covid in severe form was known, but it was not clear which genes were contained in this sequence and specifically involved in this protective effect. Experts have compared the DNA of individuals of different ancestry to trace the origins of this protection. They found that 80% of individuals of African descent have the protective variant rs10774671-G in their DNA. Experts have seen that the protective gene contains the instructions to make a protein (called OAS1) longer than its normal version and this elongated protein is already known for its ability to defeat the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“Knowing the genetic risk (or protective) factors in detail is a crucial aspect for the development of new anti-COVID-19 drugs” – says one of the authors of the work, Brent Richards, of McGill University in Canada.
(ANSA).
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