Investigating the relationship between C-159T polymorphism in CD14 gene promoter and disease severity in 2019 corona virus patients

Considering the effectiveness of polymorphisms in the occurrence of respiratory diseases, it seems that these genetic variations in viral and microbial receptors can be effective in the occurrence and progression of the disease. The present study aimed to  assess the relationship between the C-159T polymorphism in the CD14 gene promoter and the severity of the disease in  Covid-19 patients during 2020-2021.

The subjects were randomly selected from subjects referred for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and studied in five groups: healthy, outpatient, non-critically ill hospitalized, critically ill hospitalized, and deceased patients. The peripheral blood (3ml) was obtained from all patients and DNA was extracted. Thereafter,  C-159T polymorphism in the CD14 gene promoter was determined by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method. The genotype frequency was determined in terms of heterozygosity, homozygosity, and mutant regarding polymorphism. The data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 21) (P<0.05).

The results pointed out that the most common C-159T polymorphism was the CT polymorphism, which was observed in 107 (51.0%) subjects and was significantly higher than other polymorphisms in all PCR- and PCR+ participants. This difference was not significant for deceased people.

According to the results pointing out that the C-159T polymorphism is effective in causing the disease, as well as the significant relationship between the TT and CT genotypes with the coronavirus, the probability of developing the disease is higher in T allele carriers. Therefore, it is suggested that CT polymorphism in CD14 gene promoter is considered an important prognosis in coronavirus disease.