LONDON (Dispatches) -- More than 3000 proteins have been analyzed to identify which are causally linked to the development of severe COVID-19.
Researchers at King’s College London used a genetic tool to screen over 3000 proteins and
identified six proteins that could underlie an increased risk of severe COVID-19 and eight that could contribute to protection from severe COVID-19.
One of the proteins (ABO) that was identified as having a causal connection to the risk of developing severe COVID-19 determines blood groups, suggesting that blood groups play an instrumental role in whether people develop severe forms of the disease.
Dr Alish Palmos from Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) King’s College London said they used a purely genetic approach to investigate a large number of blood proteins and established that a handful had causal links to the development of severe COVID-19 and that focusing on this group of proteins was a vital first step in discovering potentially valuable targets for development of new treatments.
Assessing how blood proteins are linked to disease can help understand the underlying mechanisms and identify potential new targets for developing or repurposing drugs. Protein levels can be measured directly from blood samples but conducting this type of research for large numbers of proteins is costly and cannot establish causal direction.