Genetics and covid deaths

Neanderthal gene probably caused up to a million Covid deaths https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/06/09/neanderthal-gene-probably-caused-million-covid-deaths/ https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2022/the-butterfly-effect-covid-19-and-our-ancestors LZTFL 1 gene The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2818-3 Clinical manifestations, asymptomatic to rapid progression to respiratory failure Co-morbidities do not fully explain variability Region (gene cluster) on chromosome 3 Only region that is significantly associated with severity Odds ratio for requiring hospitalization of 1.6 Death, 2.0 Genome-wide association study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-020-0636-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15393 N = 3,199 hospitalized with COVID-19 Population controls, 897,488 The major genetic risk factor for severe symptoms Risk is conferred by genomic segment, 50 kilobases Inherited from Neanderthals Haplotype Group of alleles (one version of a gene) in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent. Sequence strongly associated with each other in the population Haplotype carried by 50% of people in south Asia, at least one copy 16% of people in Europe 9% of admixed American Bangladesh 63% heterozygous 13% homozygous Bangladeshi origins, living in UK Hazard ratio of death, 2.0 Almost absent in east Asia Neanderthals or Denisovans? Present in a homozygous form in the genome of Vindija Neanderthal, 50,000-year-old Neanderthal from Croatia Founder of the clade Neanderthals and modern humans split 550,000 years ago https://www.imm.ox.ac.uk https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-04-oxford-university-researchers-uncover-gene-doubles-risk-death-covid-19 Dr James Davies University of Oxford We used the technique and it identified a virtually understudied gene called LZTFL1, and at the time that this had not been linked to infection at all. It’s a single letter difference out of three billion. This tiny section of DNA doubles your risk of dying from Covid. It's position 45,818,159 on chromosome three, and it's a single change. If you've got a G at that site, it's low risk. And if you have an A at that site it is high risk adenine (A) cytosine (C) guanine (G) thymine (T) Gene changes cell reaction to binding of SARS-CoV-2 virus onto the ACE2 receptor Conformational changes In most people, this leads to the cell then changing shape Conformational changes reduces further binding High risk variant, less or delayed conformational change Deaths globally, is in the hundreds of thousands to a million Dr Davies and Dr Simon Underdown The Neanderthal gene first infiltrated humans 60,000 years ago One event, one child Neanderthal Introgression, Gene jumped into the Homo sapien lineage The reason that we know that is that it's inherited as this block with 28 single letter changes, and you can track that all the way back and it has to be a single event. It's just so unlikely that you get all 28 changes at the same time and in the same block Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices