ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
A genomic region associated with protection against severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neandertals.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 123 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
123 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Gene Expression Meta-Analysis Reveals Interferon-Induced Genes Associated With SARS Infection in Lungs.Frontiers in immunologyPooled it
- The Neanderthal-Derived 3p21 Haplotype at LZTFL1 in Modern-Day Moroccans Is Associated With COVID-19 Severity and Further Suggests the Presence of Neanderthals in North Africa.International journal of immunogenetics · 2026Article
- Integrative Genomics Identifies Candidate Genes Underlying Trypanotolerance in Hybrid African Cattle.Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Fast pairwise coalescence enables gene-resolution scans for recent selection in diverse human populations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Insights into infectious diseases through ancient pathogen genomics.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- The FunctionalInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Overexpression ofJournal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Genetic, Sociodemographic and Clinical Determinants of COVID-19 Severity in the Republic of Srpska: Exploring Potential Links with Neanderthal-Derived Variants.Biomedicines · 2026Article
- The OAS-RNase L pathway: Insights from experiments of nature.Science immunology · 2026Review
- Causal splicing variants revealed by deep-learning integration of single-cell sQTL mapping under influenza infection.Research square · 2026Article
- Insights into human history and complex traits from the genomes of African populations.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Innate immunogenetic synergy between KIR and Neanderthal-derived OAS variants predicts COVID-19 outcomes.PloS one · 2026Article
- Association of Chromosome 3p21.32 Haplotype Blocks Introgressed from Neanderthals with Critical COVID-19 in a Spanish Cohort.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The seven enigmas of SARS-CoV-2: from the past to the future.Journal of human immunity · 2025Article
- Natural Selection of a Virus-Protective FUT2 Variant Following the Transition to Agriculture.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Article
- Switching of OAS1 splicing isoforms overcomes SNP-derived vulnerability to SARS-CoV-2 infection.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Human dispersal into East Eurasia: ancient genome insights and the need for research on physiological adaptations.Journal of physiological anthropology · 2025Review
63 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
It was recently shown that the major genetic risk factor associated with becoming severely ill with COVID-19 when infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is inherited from Neandertals. New, larger genetic association studies now allow additional genetic risk factors to be discovered. Using data from the Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care (GenOMICC) consortium, we show that a haplotype at a region on chromosome 12 associated with requiring intensive care when infected with the virus is inherited from Neandertals. This region encodes proteins that activate enzymes that are important during infections with RNA viruses. In contrast to the previously described Neandertal haplotype that increases the risk for severe COVID-19, this Neandertal haplotype is protective against severe disease. It also differs from the risk haplotype in that it has a more moderate effect and occurs at substantial frequencies in all regions of the world outside Africa. Among ancient human genomes in western Eurasia, the frequency of the protective Neandertal haplotype may have increased between 20,000 and 10,000 y ago and again during the past 1,000 y.
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