Unraveling the Genetic Tapestry of COVID-19: RNA-seq Studies Reveal SNPs and Antibody Profiles Across European and Korean Populations

Rayeh Elian

Mentor: Dr. Hye Kyung Lee, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney

Date/Time: August 17th, 2023 at 4pm.

Abstract: Multiple COVID-19 genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) indicating that there is a genetic component to severity. However, there is limited information because they are identified by comparing only between hospitalized patients and non-hospitalized patients. Dr. Lee provided me with vcf files that were processed in variant calling using GATK in more than 500 RNA-seq data. 

I attempted to identify SNPs associated with susceptibility to viral infection and the expression of genes with the SNPs by comparing SNPs on immunoglobulin genes that produce antibodies and their usage to produce specific antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 virus by comparing between healthy people and COVID-19 patients using RNA-seq data from European and Korea population. The conclusion I reached was that all SNPs annotated using SNPEff were located on the mitochondrial chromosome. Our goal to find SNPs on an immune gene specific to race was not successful.