Gene Variants Associated With Individual Sensitivity for Taste Changes After the COVID‐19 Infection

Human gustatory function is a complex trait combining taste, smell, and touch required for the safety and quality assessment of ingested food. Taste dysfunction is one of the most prominent symptoms of COVID‐19 that was reversible in most cases, but some patients reported permanent changes in their perception of different food sources. This symptom brought attention to the complexity of the regulation of smell and taste and their potential use in diagnostics and treatment of acute and chronic taste disorders. We investigated the genetic association of candidate genes with SARS‐CoV‐2 infection–related dysgeusia. A total of 96 individuals with confirmed virus infection were divided into groups according to the presence of self‐reported taste dysfunction and genotyped using a custom Illumina gene panel. Out of 18 functionally related taste genes, statistically significant differences were observed for HCN4 variants c∗2393C > G ( p = 0.013) and c.2556G > A ( p = 0.026), PLCB2 variants c.3037‐55T > C ( p = 0.019) and c.582+958_582+959inv ( p = 0.021), and TAS1R1 variant c.1594+41G > A ( p = 0.03), which indicate possible association to taste dysfunction in response to virus infection.