The effect of the <i>MBL2</i> gene rs1800450 variant on COVID-19 development in Turkish patients

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recent pandemic occurring worldwide due to the <i>severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2</i> (SARS-CoV-2) virus, spreading mainly through large respiratory droplets or maybe through other transmission routes. The human genome has the most varied immune response genes correlated with infectious diseases. Genetic variants of mannose-binding lectin 2 (<i>MBL2</i>), an immunomodulatory gene, were associated with the risk, severity, and frequency of viral infections. In the present study, we hypothesized that the <i>MBL2</i> gene rs1800450 variant could be associated with the development of COVID-19 disease in a Turkish population. Ninety-eight COVID-19 patients and 98 healthy, ethnically matched controls were studied. We isolated genomic DNA from whole blood and analyzed the <i>MBL2</i> rs1800450 using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method. Associations were analyzed with the SPSS 20 statistical software. We found that <i>MBL2</i> rs1800450 genotype distribution was significantly different between patients and controls. The patients had a higher <i>MBL2</i> rs1800450 AA genotype than the controls had (4.94% in patients vs. 3.12% in controls, <i>p</i> = 0.006). The subjects carrying AA genotype had a 10.83-fold increased risk for COVID-19 disease (OR = 10.83, %95 CI = 1.359-86.349). We could not detect any significant difference between the COVID-19 patients and healthy controls in allele frequencies. Our findings demonstrated that the <i>MBL2</i> rs1800450 BB genotype might increase the susceptibility to COVID-19 disease in the Turkish population. We suggest further studies with a larger sample size and other ethnic populations.