A second update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

Investigating the role of host genetic factors in COVID-19 severity and susceptibility can inform our understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms that influence adverse outcomes and drug development 1 , 2 . Here we present a second updated genome-wide association study (GWAS) on COVID-19 severity and infection susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 from the COVID-19 Host Genetic Initiative (data release 7). We performed a meta-analysis of up to 219,692 cases and over 3 million controls, identifying 51 distinct genome-wide significant loci—adding 28 loci from the previous data release 2 . The increased number of candidate genes at the identified loci helped to map three major biological pathways that are involved in susceptibility and severity: viral entry, airway defence in mucus and type I interferon.