@article{van_Blokland_I-2021_64336,
title = {Using symptom-based case predictions to identify host genetic factors that contribute to COVID-19 susceptibility},
author = {van Blokland, I. and Lanting, P. and Ori, A. and Vonk, J. and Warmerdam, R. and Herkert, J. and Boulogne, F. and Claringbould, A. and Lopera-Maya, E. and Bartels, M. and Hottenga, J. and Ganna, A. and Karjalainen, J. and Hayward, C. and Fawns-Ritchie, C. and Campbell, A. and Porteous, D. and Cirulli, E. and Barrett, K. and Riffle, S. and Bolze, A. and White, S. and Tanudjaja, F. and Wang, X. and Ramirez, J. and Lim, Y. and Lu, J. and Washington, N. and de Geus, E. and Deelen, P. and Boezen, H. and Franke, L.},
month = {aug},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Epidemiological and genetic studies on COVID-19 are currently hindered by inconsistent and limited testing policies to confirm SARS-CoV-2 infection. Recently, it was shown that it is possible to predict COVID-19 cases using cross-sectional self-reported disease-related symptoms. Here, we demonstrate that this COVID-19 prediction model has reasonable and consistent performance across multiple independent cohorts and that our attempt to improve upon this model did not result in improved predictions. Using the existing COVID- 19 prediction model, we then conducted a GWAS on the predicted phenotype using a total of 1,865 predicted cases and 29,174 controls. While we did not find any common, largeeffect variants that reached genome-wide significance, we do observe suggestive genetic associations at two SNPs (rs11844522, p = 1.9x10-7; rs5798227, p = 2.2x10-7). Explorative analyses furthermore suggest that genetic variants associated with other viral infectious diseases do not overlap with COVID-19 susceptibility and that severity of COVID-19 may have a different genetic architecture compared to COVID-19 susceptibility. This study represents a first effort that uses a symptom-based predicted phenotype as a proxy for COVID-19 in our pursuit of understanding the genetic susceptibility of the disease. We conclude that the inclusion of symptom-based predicted cases could be a useful strategy in a scenario of limited testing, either during the current COVID-19 pandemic or any future viral outbreak.},
volume = {16},
issue = {8},
journal = {PLoS ONE},
publisher = {Public Library of Science},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255402},
}
