Candidate Genes Associated with Susceptibility for SARS-Coronavirus

Assuming that no human had any previously acquired immunoprotection against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) during the 2003 SARS outbreak, the biological bases for possible difference in individual susceptibility are intriguing. However, this issue has never been fully elucidated. Based on the premise that SARS patients belonging to a given genotype group having a significantly higher SARS infection rate than others would imply that genotype group being more susceptible, we make use of a compartmental model describing disease transmission dynamics and clinical and gene data of 100 laboratory confirmed SARS patients from Chinese Han population in Taiwan to estimate the infection rates of distinct candidate genotype groups among these SARS-infected individuals. The results show that CXCL10(−938AA) is always protective whenever it appears, but appears rarely and only jointly with either Fgl2(+158T/*) or HO-1(−497A/*), while (Fgl2)(+158T/*) is associated with higher susceptibility unless combined with CXCL10/IP-10(−938AA), when jointly is associated with lower susceptibility. The novel modeling approach proposed, which does not require sizable case and control gene datasets, could have important future public health implications in swiftly identifying potential high-risk groups associated with being highly susceptible to a particular infectious disease.