Oxford scientists identify genes that doubles risk of death from COVID-19

The study found that the higher risk version of the gene probably prevents the cells lining airways and the lungs from responding to the virus properly, but it does not affect the immune system.

According to Dr Damien Downes, who led the laboratory work from the Hughes research group, the data showed that a relatively unstudied gene called LZTFL1 causes the effect.

These findings partly explain the excess deaths seen in some UK communities, and the impact of COVID-19 in the Indian subcontinent as sixty percent of people with South Asian ancestry carry the high-risk genetic signal.

Read more: Oxford vaccine team say they were fuelled by “Mini Cheddars and Bounty Bars”

Study co-lead, professor James Davies, said: “Although we cannot change our genetics, our results show that the people with the higher risk gene are likely to particularly benefit from vaccination. Since the genetic signal affects the lung rather than the immune system it means that the increased risk should be cancelled out by the vaccine.”

The study was led by professor Davies and Jim Hughes at the University of Oxford’s MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine.

Previous work had already identified a stretch of DNA on chromosome 3 which doubled the risk of adults under 65 of dying from COVID, however, it was not known how this genetic signal worked to increase the risk, nor the exact genetic change that was responsible.

Professor Hughes explained the reason why this has been so difficult to work out is because the increased risk is not because of a difference in gene coding for a protein, but because of a difference in the DNA that makes a switch to turn a gene on, which is much harder to detect.

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