A GENOME-WIDE ASSOCIATION STUDY IN A ROMANIAN COLORECTAL CANCER COHORT IDENTIFIES GENETIC MARKERS ASSOCIATED WITH SUSCEPTIBILITY TO SARS-COV-2 INFECTIONS

Abstract

Colorectal cancer ranks second in the incidence of cancer deaths worldwide. Our objectives are to identify genetic markers associated with colorectal cancer susceptibility using a genome-wide association study and to evaluate the identified genetic markers in the context of associated SARS-CoV-2 infections in the Romanian population. The study population consisted of 576 unrelated histopathologically confirmed colorectal cancer (CRC) cases and 1,069 controls consisting of patients admitted for medical conditions, excluding cancer. The DNA was extracted from buccal swab samples and analyzed by deCODE Genetics (Reykjavik, Iceland). We used the NHGRI catalog database to identify 85 unique variants from a systematic literature review for variants associated with CRC. Two of the tested variants in the Romanian GWAS reached genomewide significance (p-value lower than 5 × 10-8), but one of them did not match the other criteria. The top three markers were located on chr3, and the following two were located on chr2 and chr12, respectively. The Romanian GWAS results for CRC were compared to established markers linked to the measurement of COVID-19 symptoms. This allowed us to identify loci that may be useful in the future for assessing prognosis, treatment, and outcomes. We confirmed that established colorectal cancer SNPs are linked to colorectal cancer risk in the Romanian population while also examining the potential genetic connections between colorectal cancer predisposition and SARS-CoV-2 infection and symptoms.