Corona pandemic: According to a German study, the gene type reduces the risk of death by more than a third

Created: 08/01/2022, 19:16

By: Marcus Giebel

No reason to panic yet: A positive corona test does not have to be synonymous with a difficult illness.

© IMAGO / Gottfried Czepluch

Once the coronavirus has found its way into the body, the immune system is in demand.

According to German researchers, one gene type seems to favor a quick response.

Munich – Are all people equal before Corona?

This assumption of the first weeks of the pandemic is becoming more and more outdated.

The first months in which the virus was rampant had already shown that SARS-CoV-2 was particularly bad for older and previously ill people.

In the meantime, it has also been recognized that the risk of a severe course of Covid 19 also depends on the blood group.

The various approved vaccines also offer protection.

A study from Germany now shows that a certain gene variant also significantly reduces the risk of death.

And by more than a third.

This is the conclusion reached by a research team from the Medical Faculty of the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE).

The work is the largest German study on Covid-19.

Risk of death from corona: 20 percent of the patients examined could not be saved

The basis was the disease progression of 1570 patients who tested positive between March 11, 2020 and June 30, 2021. The results of the study team led by Dr.

Birte Möhlendick from the Institute of Pharmacogenetics at the University Hospital Essen were published in the journal "Frontiers in Genetics".

Of the subjects, 205 had a mild course, which corresponds to a proportion of 13 percent.

They could be treated on an outpatient basis.

760 patients, i.e. 48 percent, had to be admitted as inpatients.

292 people and thus almost a fifth required intensive medical care, 313 of the 1570 corona infected people died.

20 percent could not be saved.

Corona pandemic: Gene variant "GNB3 TT" is said to significantly reduce the risk of death

"As is already known, we were also able to observe that a younger age and the absence of cardiovascular diseases or diabetes reduces the risk of dying after infection with SARS-CoV-2 by half," emphasized Möhlendick and then came to talk about the news: "But what is particularly astonishing and so far a completely new finding is that the gene variant 'GNB3 TT' reduces the risk of dying by 35 percent."

Ten percent of the European population would carry this gene type.

“GNB3 is a gene that encodes an important functional subunit of the so-called G proteins.

The G proteins are involved in many processes in the body.

Among other things, our working group was able to show in its own preparatory work that the gene variant described in the study results in the activation of immune cells," explained the head of the study at the

.

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Study on the corona virus: researchers look at the course of the disease and immune responses

When it comes to the question of the severity of the course of Covid-19, an early and adequate immune response is particularly important.

"In this study, we looked on the one hand at whether the patients with different degrees of severity have different immune responses and whether the gene variant in 'GNB3' might be responsible for this," Möhlendick continued to outline the procedure.

The researchers worked together with the Clinic for Infectious Diseases and the Institute for Transfusion Medicine.

And lo and behold: the immune cells of people with a mild course in the laboratory test reacted more strongly to the corona virus than the cells of people with severe courses of the disease.

Corona and gene type "GNB3 TT": Strongest reaction to the virus and significantly reduced risk of death

So you're back to the gene type that seems to favor a quick and appropriate response to the corona viruses.

Möhlendick sums it up as follows: "We were also able to show that the cells from people with the 'GNB3 TT' genotype responded most strongly to the coronavirus, which may explain why the risk of death is so greatly reduced in these gene carriers."

Since the study ended in the summer of 2021, the omicron variant, discovered months later, was not yet part of the work.

However, further studies are being carried out into the possible influence of other gene types on the course of Covid-19.

Perhaps more good news from German laboratories will follow soon.