TOMSK, Apr 9 – RIA Tomsk. The liability to a severe form of COVID-19 in Indian peoples and among northern Europeans, in particular, Russians and Britons, is higher than in Asians, for example, Yakutia and Mongolia, scientists of Tomsk National Research Medical Center (TNRMC) made such conclusions, studying the human genome, the head of TNRMC Vadim Stepanov told RIA Tomsk.
According to him, scientists of the Research Institute of Medical Genetics of the Tomsk NRMC examined over two thousand samples of representatives of more than 90 populations of people inhabiting Eurasia: this database was collected by scientists from Russia and abroad during five years of research on the evolution of diseases. The research team has discovered six regions of the human genome, which in some cases can double the risk of a severe course of coronavirus infection, including COVID-19.
"These are interferon receptor genes or genes that are responsible for certain metabolic processes or regulate the work of other genes. These six variants are common in different peoples with very different frequencies. We investigated the frequency with which these genes occur in Eurasian populations," he said.
According to Stepanov, every third (30%) is a carrier of at least one "bad gene" in Europe and India - and it is a high risk. On average, all over the globe - there are 15% of such carriers, in the Mongoloid populations of Asia - is about 5-15%. The lowest predisposition is among the inhabitants of Yakutia, just about 5%.
According to the head of TNRMC, the data obtained can be used for further studies of the nature of diseases and the mechanisms of their development.