Exploring genetic associations between allergic diseases and indicators of COVID-19 using mendelian randomization

Yujie Wang; Xiaoyu Gu; Xinquan Wang; Wu Zhu; Juan Su

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106936

Exploring genetic associations between allergic diseases and indicators of COVID-19 using mendelian randomization

iScience. 2023 Jun 16;26(6):106936. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106936. Epub 2023 May 22.

Authors

Yujie Wang^{1

2

3

4}, Xiaoyu Gu^{1

2

3

4}, Xinquan Wang^{1

2

3

4}, Wu Zhu^{1

2

3

4}, Juan Su^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Dermatology, Hunan Engineering Research Center of Skin Health and Disease, Hunan Key Laboratory of Skin Cancer and Psoriasis, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, China.
² National Engineering Research Center of Personalized Diagnostic and Therapeutic Technology, Changsha 410008, China.
³ National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders (Xiangya Hospital), Changsha 410008, China.
⁴ Furong Laboratory, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China.

Abstract

We carried out a bidirectional Mendelian randomization (MR) including cases of eczema (N = 218,792), asthma (N = 462,933), and allergic rhinitis (N = 112,583). COVID-19 susceptibility (N = 1,683,768), COVID-19 hospitalization (N = 1,887,658), and COVID-19 severe respiratory symptom (N = 1,388,342) were sampled from GWAS database. The MR analysis was primarily based on inverse variance weighted (IVW), supplemented by several other algorithms. In the bidirectional MR analysis, eczema was negatively associated with COVID-19 susceptibility (odds ratio (OR) _IVW = 0.92; p = 0.031) and COVID-19 hospitalization (OR_IVW = 0.81, p = 0.010); asthma was negatively associated with COVID-19 susceptibility (OR_IVW = 0.65, p = 0.005) and COVID-19 severe respiratory symptom (OR_IVW = 0.20, p = 0.001). No significant association was found between allergic rhinitis and COVID-19 susceptibility (OR_IVW = 0.80, p = 0.174), COVID-19 hospitalization (OR_IVW = 0.71, p = 0.207), or COVID-19 severe respiratory symptom (OR_IVW = 0.56; p = 0.167). The reverse MR analysis showed no potential reverse causal association. Our findings provided new evidence that allergic diseases might be associated with different risks of COVID-19 susceptibility, hospitalization, and severe respiratory symptom.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Genetics; Microbiology.