Abstract

Since the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a variation in the prevalence rates of the coronavirus that causes the disease, the distribution of moderate and severe symptoms, and death rates, among different populations. Although no environmental factors can be ruled out, the genetic make-up of patients of different races is a contributing and possibly decisive factor in the progress and severity of injuries. Recently, several single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with the development of clinical symptoms, among them polymorphisms in the TMPRSS2 gene and protein involved in the pathogenicity of the virus by cleaving the spike viral protein and facilitating the binding of the latter to the virus receptor on the surface of pulmonary cells ACE2. Contributing to identify the genetic make-up associated with COVID-19 disease in a Syrian population, in this study we investigated the frequency of two polymorphisms, rs8134378 (G>A) and rs12329760 (C>T) in the TMPRSS2 gene in a population of healthy Syrians, in addition to a population of patients with a number of clinical disorders, including high blood pressure and thrombosis. For this, we designed and performed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specific primers for the site of each of the two polymorphisms, followed by sequencing of the amplicons and identification of the nucleotide change for each. Our results showed a high frequency of the A allele (11.4%) of the rs8134378 polymorphism in healthy subjects and a higher frequency in male patients (17.9%); a low frequency of the T allele (19%) of the rs12329760 polymorphism in healthy subjects and a lower frequency in male patients (16.7%); all in comparison to the average frequency of the two polymorphisms in other populations in the world, (7.7%) and (22.5%), respectively. Our results indicate a possible association between the frequencies of both polymorphisms in the studied population and the low rates of severe infections and deaths in the Syrian community.