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COVID-19 polygenic risk score (PRS)

  • PRS: a tool for predicting individuals’ genetic risk relative to population’s average.

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  • Challenge: PRS calculated base don GWAS in one population may be inaccurate in other populations.
  • Goal: To calculate PRSs for COVID-19 susceptibility & severity, test their performance, & improves their accuracy for trans-ethnic risk prediction.

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Samira Asgari, BWH/HMS, Boston, USA

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PRS calculation

  1. Effect size estimation
  2. Testing different p-value thresholds for variant selection
  3. Selection of independent variants
  4. PRS calculation
  5. Testing prediction accuracy (stratified by genetic ancestry)
  6. Improve trans-ethnic accuracy (fine mapping, functional annotation: Amariuta & Ishigak et al Nat Gen, 2020)

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Samira Asgari, BWH/HMS, Boston, USA

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PRS application

  • Starting from BioMe

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  • Using the selected set of SNPs to generate PRS for other cohorts and testing its predictive power.

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  • Next step: comparing immunophenotypes in individuals that are at high or low risk for COVID-19 susceptibly/severity.

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Samira Asgari, BWH/HMS, Boston, USA