The association of PON1 and NOS3 genetic variants with the severity of COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The aim of this study was to investigate the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of paraoxonase 1(PON1) and nitric oxide synthase 3 (NOS3) genes with the severity of COVID-19. Study subjects were divided into mild and severe groups. Genotyping was conducted by allele specific real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Gene-gene interaction was assessed by multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) analysis. The results showed a significant association of both PON1 rs662 (A575G), and NOS3 rs2070744 (T786C) with the severity of COVID-19 (p = 0.0026, and p = 0.033, respectively). PON1 575AG (OR = 0.30, 95 % CI [0.13–0.68]) and NOS3 786TC (OR = 0.35, 95 % CI [0.15–0.78]) were associated with mild COVID-19 symptoms. The resulted SNP-SNP interaction model by MDR analysis was statistically significant (p = 0.0003). NOS3 786C * PON1 575G haplotype was significantly associated with mild cases of COVID-19 (p = 0.045).