The Human Genome and COVID-19

Abstract The novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) is an acute infectious disease caused by the SARS CoV2 virus. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global challenge for health and science, and in the field of human genetics, it has led to a surge in research on the role of host genetics in susceptibility to and severity of infectious diseases. Despite the nongenetic etiology of COVID-19, genome-wide association studies and whole-genome and whole-exome analyses have identified a number of genomic regions that are significantly associated with susceptibility to infection and disease severity, modifying the risk of developing COVID-19 at the individual level. These data cannot serve as a basis for identifying risk groups or predicting the severity of the disease, but are useful for understanding the pathogenesis of the disease and developing approaches to its diagnosis and therapy. Studies at the level of post-genomic mechanisms regulating the implementation of genetic information have revealed specific patterns of expression and methylation of the genome in response to the virus and during disease progression and have shown the potential for developing targeted approaches for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. The challenges for genetics as a science that have arisen with the development of the COVID-19 pandemic, the answers to them, the experience, and accumulated data will undoubtedly be reflected in further substantiated approaches to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of both COVID-19 and other rapidly spreading infectious diseases.