ArticleFrontiers in genetics2021
Circulating Cytokines and Coronavirus Disease: A Bi-Directional Mendelian Randomization Study.
Article in Frontiers in genetics, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Micronutrients, Vitamin D, and Inflammatory Biomarkers in COVID-19: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Causal Inference Studies.Nutrition reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Challenges in interpreting Mendelian randomization studies with a disease as the exposure: Using COVID-19 liability studies as an exemplar.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2025Pooled it
- Identifying factors contributing to increased susceptibility to COVID-19 risk: a systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies.International journal of epidemiology · 2022Pooled it
- Article
- ELF5 is a potential respiratory epithelial cell-specific risk gene for severe COVID-19.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Cytokine Storm Signature in Patients with Moderate and Severe COVID-19.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Association of smoking, lung function and COPD in COVID-19 risk: a two-step Mendelian randomization study.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2022Article
- Proteome-wide Mendelian randomization identifies causal links between blood proteins and severe COVID-19.PLoS genetics · 2022Article
- Interleukin-18 and COVID-19.Epidemiology and infection · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundImmune system functioning is relevant to vulnerability to coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Cytokines are important to immunity. To further elucidate the role of the immune system in COVID-19, we used Mendelian randomization (MR) to assess comprehensively and bi-directionally the role of cytokines in COVID-19.
methodsWe assessed primarily whether genetically different levels of 41 cytokines affected risk of any COVID-19 (laboratory confirmed, physician confirmed or self-reported, 36,590 cases, 1,668,938 controls), and conversely if genetic risk of liability to any COVID-19 affected these cytokines (
resultsMacrophage inflammatory protein-1β (MIP1b; more commonly known as Chemokine (C-C motif) ligands 4 (CCL4) was inversely associated with COVID-19 [odds ratio (OR) 0.97 per SD, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.96-0.99] but not after adjustment for multiple comparisons. This finding replicated for hospitalized COVID-19 (OR 0.93, 95% CI 0.89-0.98). Liability to any COVID-19 was nominally associated with several cytokines, such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (GCSF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) but not after correction.
conclusionA crucial element of immune response to infection (CCL4) was related to COVID-19, whether it is a target of intervention to prevent COVID-19 warrants further investigation.
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