Asymptomatic Covid? There is a genetic hypothesis discovered in Italy. According to a study signed by the Ceinge-Biotechnology group of Naples, published in the specialist journal Genetics in Medicine, three rare genetic mutations which would act by weakening the genes involved in the activation processes of the immune system. Making it so evidently the cytokine storm following the infection was less powerful. This is a discovery that, according to researchers directed by Mario Capasso and Achille Iolascon, professors of medical genetics at the Federico II University of Naples, could lead to new therapies and unprecedented diagnostic techniques for the disease.
The survey was carried out in collaboration with Pellegrino Cerino of the Zooprophylactic Institute of Portici and Massimo Zollo, coordinator of the Covid del Ceinge task force, also a professor of Genetics at Federico II. About 800 DNA samples of infected but asymptomatic subjects, moreover at risk of serious disease due to various factors such as advanced age, were sequenced and analyzed as well as made available online for the world scientific community: “Advanced bioinformatics analysis strategies, developed thanks to the contribution of the young researcher Giuseppe D’Alterio and the team of bioinformatics experts from Ceinge, made it possible to identify rare pathogenic mutations that were significantly more frequent in infected and asymptomatic subjects and not in a large series of about 57 thousand healthy subjects “explained Capasso.
Specifically, the three genes are Masp1, Colec10 And Colec11: it’s about lectin proteins who are precisely involved in cell recognition processes: “Today it is amply demonstrated that theexcessive immune response to Sars-CoV-2 infection and the subsequent hyper-activation of pro-inflammatory and pro-coagulative processes are the main cause of damage to organs such as lungs, heart, kidney – added Capasso – our research shows that mutations of the human genome that attenuate this excessive immune reaction can predispose to an infection without severe symptoms ». If not, in fact, asymptomatic.
“We can use these mutations to identify subjects who are predisposed to develop less severe or asymptomatic forms of Covid-19 disease – concluded Iolascon – in addition, the serum levels of the three identified genes could be used as prognostic markers of severe disease”.
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Source: Vanity Fair
