Shared genomic architectures of COVID-19 and antisocial behavior
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Abstract
Little is known about the genetics of norm violation and aggression in relation to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To investigate this, we used summary statistics from genome-wide association studies and linkage disequilibrium score regression to calculate a matrix of genetic correlations ( r gs ) for antisocial behavior (ASB), COVID-19, and various health and behavioral traits. After false-discovery rate correction, ASB was genetically correlated with COVID-19 ( r g = 0.51; P = 1.54E-02) and 19 other traits. ASB and COVID-19 were both positively genetically correlated with having a noisy workplace, doing heavy manual labor, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and genitourinary diseases. ASB and COVID-19 were both inversely genetically correlated with average income, education years, healthspan, verbal reasoning, lifespan, cheese intake, and being breastfed as a baby. But keep in mind that r gs are not necessarily causal. And, if causal, their prevailing directions of effect (which causes which) are indiscernible from r gs alone. Moreover, the SNP-heritability ( $$h_g^2$$ h g 2 ) estimates for two measures of COVID-19 were very small, restricting the overlap of genetic variance in absolute terms between ASB and COVID-19. Nonetheless, our findings suggest that those with antisocial tendencies possibly have a higher risk of exposure to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) than those without antisocial tendencies. This may have been especially true early in the pandemic before vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 were available and before the emergence of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.18.21265145: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has limitations, which must be considered. The SNP heritability estimates for both measures of Covid-19, while >0, were small. Second is that genetic correlations, while being robust against environmental confounders, can still suffer from genetic sources of confounding (i.e., even with genetic correlations, correlation is not always causation). To this …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.10.18.21265145: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:Our study has limitations, which must be considered. The SNP heritability estimates for both measures of Covid-19, while >0, were small. Second is that genetic correlations, while being robust against environmental confounders, can still suffer from genetic sources of confounding (i.e., even with genetic correlations, correlation is not always causation). To this point, we think it is highly unlikely that not being breastfed as a baby and eating less cheese cause ASB. In fact, we chose these dietary traits to illustrate this very point. Rather, the shared genetic architecture that these have with education years, verbal reasoning, and average income are the more plausibly causal phenomena. Third, we cannot determine the direction of causality with genetic correlations alone. For much of the discussion above, we tacitly presumed plausible directions of effect (e.g., ASB causing Covid-19 versus Covid-19 causing ASB). But with all the traits in our matrix, the prevailing direction of effect could be the opposite and/or some level of bi-directional causation may exist15,24. These uncertainties are avenues for future research. Specifically, at present MR cannot be leveraged to test whether ASB causes any of the traits investigated, since few genome-wide significant signals have been found for ASB. But once they are found, bi-directional MR can be used to decipher the prevailing directions. A fourth limitation is that our findings are limited to those of European ancestry. The limi...
Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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