Article
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Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
HLA-DQ2/8 and COVID-19 in celiac disease: Boon or Bane
Version 1
: Received: 17 November 2023 / Approved: 17 November 2023 / Online: 17 November 2023 (11:10:37 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Lerner, A.; Benzvi, C.; Vojdani, A. HLA-DQ2/8 and COVID-19 in Celiac Disease: Boon or Bane. Microorganisms 2023, 11, 2977. Lerner, A.; Benzvi, C.; Vojdani, A. HLA-DQ2/8 and COVID-19 in Celiac Disease: Boon or Bane. Microorganisms 2023, 11, 2977.
Abstract
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic continues to pose a global threat. While its virulence has subsided, it has persisted due to the continual emergence of new mutations. Although many high-risk conditions related to COVID-19 have been identified, the understanding of protective factors remains limited. Intriguingly, epidemiological evidence suggests a low incidence of the COVID-19-infected CD patients. The present study explores whether their genetic background, namely the associated HLA-DQs, offers protection against severe COVID-19 outcomes. We hypothesize that the HLA-DQ 2/8 alleles may shield CD patients from SARS-CoV-2 and its subsequent effects, possibly due to memory CD4 T cells primed by previous exposure to human-associated common cold coronaviruses (CCC) and higher affinity to those allele's groove. In this context, we examined potential cross-reactivity between SARS-CoV-2 epitopes and human-associated CCC and assessed the binding affinity (BA) of these epitopes to HLA-DQ 2/8. Using computational methods, we analyzed sequence similarity between SARS-CoV-2 and four distinct CCC. Of 924 unique immunodominant 15-mer epitopes with at least 67% identity, 37 exhibited significant BA to HLA-DQ 2/8, suggesting a protective effect. We present various mechanisms that might explain the protective role of HLA-DQ2/8 in COVID-19-afflicted CD patients. If substantiated, these insights could enhance our understanding of gene-environment enigma and viral-host relationship, guiding potential therapeutic innovations against the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Keywords
celiac disease; human leukocyte antigen; HLA-I; HLA-II; SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; protective genes; gastrointestinal tract.
Subject
Public Health and Healthcare, Public Health and Health Services
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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