The Association of Vitamin D Receptor Polymorphisms with COVID-19 Severity

oleh: Nikolaos Tentolouris, Charoula Achilla, Ioanna A. Anastasiou, Ioanna Eleftheriadou, Anastasios Tentolouris, Dimitrios Basoulis, Ourania Kosta, Alexandros Lambropoulos, Maria P. Yavropoulou, Anthoula Chatzikyriakidou, Edward B. Jude

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2024-03-01

Deskripsi

Background: Association studies of vitamin D receptor (VDR) polymorphisms with COVID-19 severity have produced inconsistent results in different populations. Herein we examined <i>VDR</i> gene polymorphisms in a Caucasian Greek cohort of COVID-19 patients. Methods: This was a case-control study in a tertiary university hospital in Greece including 137 COVID-19 patients with varying disease severities and 72 healthy individuals. In total 209 individuals were genotyped for the FokI (rs10735810), ApaI (rs7975232), TaqI (rs731236) and BsmI (rs1544410) single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) of the <i>VDR</i> gene by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (PCR-RFLPs). Statistical analyses were performed to determine the association between genotype and disease severity, adjusting for various confounding factors. Results: Genotype distribution of the studied <i>VDR</i> SNPs in the control group was in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. The TaqI variant was differentially distributed between controls and COVID-19 patients according to the additive model (<i>p</i> = 0.009), and the CC genotype was significantly associated with an increased risk for severe COVID-19 according to the recessive model [OR: 2.52, 95%CI:1.2–5.29, <i>p</i> = 0.01]. Multivariate analysis demonstrated a robust association of COVID-19 severity and TaqI polymorphism in the recessive model even after adjusting for multiple confounders, including age, sex and CRP levels [Adj.OR:3.23, 95%CI:1.17–8.86, <i>p</i> = 0.023]. The distribution of FokI, ApaI and BsmI genotypes was similar between COVID-19 patients and controls. Conclusions: The CC genotype of TaqI polymorphism is significantly associated with an increased risk for severe COVID-19 independently of age, sex or degree of inflammation.