bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.093690; this version posted May 13, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Functional prediction and comparative population analysis of variants in genes for proteases and innate immunity related to SARS-CoV-2 infection Kristel Klaassen1¶, Biljana Stankovic1¶, Branka Zukic1, Nikola Kotur1, Vladimir Gasic1, Sonja Pavlovic1, Maja Stojiljkovic1* 1Laboratory for Molecular Biomedicine, Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia * Corresponding author E-mail:
[email protected] (MS) ¶These authors contributed equally to this work. 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.13.093690; this version posted May 13, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. Abstract New coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is capable to infect humans and cause a novel disease COVID-19. Aiming to understand a host genetic component of COVID-19, we focused on variants in genes encoding proteases and genes involved in innate immunity that could be important for susceptibility and resistance to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Analysis of sequence data of coding regions of FURIN, PLG, PRSS1, TMPRSS11a, MBL2 and OAS1 genes in 143 unrelated individuals from Serbian population identified 22 variants with potential functional effect.