Our COVID-19 connection with primitive cavemen

Some genes inherited from Neanderthals help defy the virus, others carry a risk of getting critically ill

Viruses can only survive and multiply in host cells. Therefore, studying SARS-CoV-2 virus will require studying the host. As the viral genome takes the help of host machinery, understanding the host genome is paramount to studying both susceptibility and protection against the virus in a given population. This is the main aim of multiple groups and international consortia of researchers like the Severe Covid-19 genome-wide association study Group, the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative, and the Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care (GenOMICC). A series of published studies from these consortia shed light on the host genome’s role in viral infection. These studies, published in NEJM, Nature and MedRxiv provide cues on how certain host genome regions confer an increased risk of developing the severe disease while others protect against the virus. Thus, studying the genomes of individuals in a group (for example, a particular genetic population group in India) can make us predict whether the individuals in that group are more or less likely to develop severe disease.