About this Research Topic
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Until now, the global COVID-19 death toll has reached ~6.6 million. Even a larger number of COVID-19 survivors are predicted to have long COVID, which is under-investigated and hard to be diagnosed.
The global research community has identified the important roles played by host genetic factors predisposing to COVID-19. Now we know that many human genes harbor such genetic variants associated with COVID-19, including ACE2, TMPRSS2, and many other genes.
However, there are no clear answers to whether or how these severe COVID-19-associated genetic risk factors are involved in long COVID. Furthermore, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of long COVID have not been conducted, and there are no genetic risk markers associated with long COVID reported so far. This is mainly due to the complexity of long COVID phenotypes. In addition, there is an urgency to identify risk markers among different long COVID subtypes among diverse populations from European, African, Asian populations, and other minority populations.
As COVID-19 patients frequently have comorbidities, such as hypertension and other chronic disorders, many of which are also genetically influenced, it is necessary to study whether previously published COVID-19 genetic markers are also associated with long COVID and other comorbidities.
Our goal is to collect newly performed long COVID genetic studies to increase our understanding of long COVID, which may provide new drug targets for long COVID in the future.
The aim of this topic is to collect papers that focus on the investigation of long COVID through integrated studies of genetics, molecular biology, and bioinformatics:
(1) GWAS of long COVID among diverse human populations across the world.
(2) Molecular studies for potential long COVID susceptibility genes by mining recently published large-scale COVID-19 GWASs.
(3) Integrative genetic association studies with both long COVID and other comorbidities, including but not limited to hypertension, neurological disorders, respiratory diseases, different cancer types, and influenza.
(4) Sex-biased long COVID genetic markers are necessary to be investigated, as women tend to be more susceptible than men to long COVID.
(5) Drug repositioning analyses with potential long COVID candidate genes based on open-source COVID-19 GWAS summary statistics from the COVID-19 Host Genetic Initiative (HGI) and the GRASP COVID-19 database.
(6) Any novel methods or pipelines for investigating long COVID related data or providing new insights into long COVID biology, diagnosis, and treatment would be welcome.
The global research community has identified the important roles played by host genetic factors predisposing to COVID-19. Now we know that many human genes harbor such genetic variants associated with COVID-19, including ACE2, TMPRSS2, and many other genes.
However, there are no clear answers to whether or how these severe COVID-19-associated genetic risk factors are involved in long COVID. Furthermore, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of long COVID have not been conducted, and there are no genetic risk markers associated with long COVID reported so far. This is mainly due to the complexity of long COVID phenotypes. In addition, there is an urgency to identify risk markers among different long COVID subtypes among diverse populations from European, African, Asian populations, and other minority populations.
As COVID-19 patients frequently have comorbidities, such as hypertension and other chronic disorders, many of which are also genetically influenced, it is necessary to study whether previously published COVID-19 genetic markers are also associated with long COVID and other comorbidities.
Our goal is to collect newly performed long COVID genetic studies to increase our understanding of long COVID, which may provide new drug targets for long COVID in the future.
The aim of this topic is to collect papers that focus on the investigation of long COVID through integrated studies of genetics, molecular biology, and bioinformatics:
(1) GWAS of long COVID among diverse human populations across the world.
(2) Molecular studies for potential long COVID susceptibility genes by mining recently published large-scale COVID-19 GWASs.
(3) Integrative genetic association studies with both long COVID and other comorbidities, including but not limited to hypertension, neurological disorders, respiratory diseases, different cancer types, and influenza.
(4) Sex-biased long COVID genetic markers are necessary to be investigated, as women tend to be more susceptible than men to long COVID.
(5) Drug repositioning analyses with potential long COVID candidate genes based on open-source COVID-19 GWAS summary statistics from the COVID-19 Host Genetic Initiative (HGI) and the GRASP COVID-19 database.
(6) Any novel methods or pipelines for investigating long COVID related data or providing new insights into long COVID biology, diagnosis, and treatment would be welcome.
Keywords: long COVID, GWAS, COVID-19
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