At the height of the COVID pandemic, it was a mystery why some people were badly affected by the virus and others displayed no symptoms at all. A joint Australian and US study has found a genetic link between people who were asymptomatic.
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00:00 So the link is pretty strong.
00:02 It's the first time we actually match a genetic link
00:06 with a symptomatic COVID infection.
00:09 And the gene we identified, if you do have it,
00:13 you're twice more likely to not have any symptom
00:16 for COVID infection.
00:18 And if you carry two copies of that gene,
00:20 you are eight times more likely to not have any symptoms
00:24 after COVID.
00:26 - And how common is it for people to get COVID
00:29 and have no symptoms?
00:31 - So this gene is very dependent
00:34 on your ethnicity background.
00:36 And if you are from European ancestry,
00:39 it's about 10% of individual that will carry this gene.
00:44 So it is fairly frequent.
00:47 - How does this gene work to suppress the COVID symptoms?
00:50 - So this gene is part of the immune system
00:55 and it present a small part of the virus.
00:58 And the small part of the virus
00:59 that this gene called HLA-B15
01:02 is able to present from SARS-CoV-2
01:05 is very similar from another part of the spike protein
01:08 from the seasonal coronaviruses.
01:11 So during winter, when we catch a cold,
01:13 the just normal cold, the winter cold,
01:17 it can be because of one of the seasonal coronaviruses,
01:20 which are from the same family than the SARS-CoV-2
01:24 because they all belong to the coronaviruses family.
01:28 And they share some similarity from some part of the virus.
01:31 And what we found is that HLA-B15 gene
01:34 is able to present this very similar part
01:37 between the two viruses.
01:38 And that immune system is able to recognize
01:41 the two viruses in exactly the same fashion.
01:45 - And what determines Stephanie
01:46 who has this protective gene?
01:48 Is it pretty random or is there a pattern?
01:50 - It's come from your parents.
01:53 So you inherit HLA molecule from both your parents.
01:57 And so it is a bit of a good luck
02:00 that you will carry HLA-B15
02:03 that will lead to not have any symptom from COVID.
02:06 - And how could this knowledge help those
02:08 who are vulnerable to COVID
02:10 or who were very ill when they contract the infection?
02:13 - So for the moment, most of the research on COVID
02:17 has been focusing on severe COVID
02:20 to try to apply some global solution
02:22 for people who are sick.
02:24 By understanding people are naturally protected
02:27 and remain asymptomatic,
02:29 we hope to find the mechanism behind this
02:31 to be applied to other individuals
02:33 that are actually sick with COVID.
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