AUTHOR=Roy-Vallejo Emilia , Fernández De Córdoba-Oñate Sara , Delgado-Wicke Pablo , Triguero-Martínez Ana , Montes Nuria , Carracedo-Rodríguez Rosa , Zurita-Cruz Nelly , Marcos-Jiménez Ana , Lamana Amalia , Galván-Román José María , Villapalos García Gonzalo , Zubiaur Pablo , Ciudad Marianela , Rabes Laura , Sanz Marta , Rodríguez Carlos , Villa Almudena , Rodríguez Jesús Álvarez , Marcos Celeste , Hernando Julia , Díaz-Fernández Paula , Abad Francisco , de los Santos Ignacio , Rodríguez Serrano Diego A. , García-Vicuña Rosario , Suárez Fernández Carmen , P. Gomariz Rosa , Muñoz-Calleja Cecilia , Fernández-Ruiz Elena , González-Álvaro Isidoro , Cardeñoso Laura ,  the PREDINMUN-COVID Group , Barrios Ana , Sanz Jesús , Casado Pedro , Gutiérrez Ángela , Bautista Azucena , Hernández Pilar , Ruiz Giménez Nuria , Moyano Berta , Gil Paloma , Jesús Delgado María , Parra Pedro , Sánchez Beatriz , Sáez Carmen , Fernández Rico Marta , Arévalo Román Cristina , Castañeda Santos , Llorente Irene , G. Tomero Eva , García Castañeda Noelia , Uriarte Miren , Fontán García-Rodrigo Leticia , Domingo García Diego , Alarcón Cavero Teresa , Auxiliadora Semiglia Chong María , Gutiérrez Cobos Ainhoa , Sánchez-Madrid Francisco , Martín Gayo Enrique , Sánchez-Cerrillo Ildefonso , Martínez-Fleta Pedro , López-Sanz Celia , Gabrie Ligia , del Campo Guerola Luciana , Tejedor Reyes , Ancochea Julio , García Castillo Elena , Ávalos Elena , Sánchez-Azofra Ana , Alonso Tamara , Cisneros Carolina , Valenzuela Claudia , Javier García Pérez Francisco , María Girón Rosa , Aspa Javier , Marcos Celeste , del Perpetuo Socorro Churruca M. , Zamora Enrique , Martínez Adrián , Barrio Mayo Mar , Henares Espi Rosalina , Méndez Rosa , Arribas David , Chicot Llano Marta , González Begoña , Quicios Begoña , Patiño Pablo , Trigueros Marina , Dominguez Peña Cristina , Jiménez Jiménez David , Villamayor Pablo , Canabal Alfonso , de la Cámara Rafael , Ortiz Javier , Iturrate Isabel 

TITLE=Occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 viremia is associated with genetic variants of genes related to COVID-19 pathogenesis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2023.1215246

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2023.1215246

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Introduction</title><p>SARS-CoV-2 viral load has been related to COVID-19 severity. The main aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between SARS-CoV-2 viremia and SNPs in genes previously studied by our group as predictors of COVID-19 severity.</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Materials and methods</title><p>Retrospective observational study including 340 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in the University Hospital La Princesa between March 2020 and December 2021, with at least one viremia determination. Positive viremia was considered when viral load was above the quantifiable threshold (20 copies/ml). A total of 38 SNPs were genotyped. To study their association with viremia a multivariate logistic regression was performed.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Results</title><p>The mean age of the studied population was 64.5 years (SD 16.6), 60.9% patients were male and 79.4% white non-Hispanic. Only 126 patients (37.1%) had at least one positive viremia. After adjustment by confounders, the presence of the minor alleles of rs2071746 (<italic>HMOX1</italic>; T/T genotype OR 9.9 <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.0001), rs78958998 (probably associated with <italic>SERPING1</italic> expression; A/T genotype OR 2.3, <italic>p</italic> = 0.04 and T/T genotype OR 12.9, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.0001), and rs713400 (eQTL for <italic>TMPRSS2</italic>; C/T + T/T genotype OR 1.86, <italic>p</italic> = 0.10) were associated with higher risk of viremia, whereas the minor alleles of rs11052877 (<italic>CD69</italic>; A/G genotype OR 0.5, p = 0.04 and G/G genotype OR 0.3, <italic>p</italic> = 0.01), rs2660 (<italic>OAS1</italic>; A/G genotype OR 0.6, <italic>p</italic> = 0.08), rs896 (<italic>VIPR1</italic>; T/T genotype OR 0.4, <italic>p</italic> = 0.02) and rs33980500 (<italic>TRAF3IP2</italic>; C/T + T/T genotype OR 0.3, <italic>p</italic> = 0.01) were associated with lower risk of viremia.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Conclusion</title><p>Genetic variants in <italic>HMOX1</italic> (rs2071746), <italic>SERPING1</italic> (rs78958998), <italic>TMPRSS2</italic> (rs713400), <italic>CD69</italic> (rs11052877), <italic>TRAF3IP2</italic> (rs33980500), <italic>OAS1</italic> (rs2660) and <italic>VIPR1</italic> (rs896) could explain heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 viremia in our population.</p></sec>