The ABO blood group locus and a chromosome 3 gene cluster associate with SARSCoV-2 respiratory failure in an Italian-Spanish genome-wide association analysis

ABSTRACT

Background

Respiratory failure is a key feature of severe Covid-19 and a critical driver of mortality, but
for reasons poorly defined affects less than 10% of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients.

Methods

We included 1,980 patients with Covid-19 respiratory failure at seven centers in the Italian
and Spanish epicenters of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Europe (Milan, Monza, Madrid, San
Sebastian and Barcelona) for a genome-wide association analysis. After quality control and
exclusion of population outliers, 835 patients and 1,255 population-derived controls from
Italy, and 775 patients and 950 controls from Spain were included in the final analysis. In
total we analyzed 8,582,968 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and conducted a metaanalysis of both case-control panels.