Study finds relationship between immune pathway response to influenza and genetic ancestry

New research at the University of Chicago has found differences in immune pathway activation to influenza infection between individuals of European and African genetic ancestry. Many of the genes that were associated with these differences in the immune response to the flu are also enriched among genes that correlate with COVID-19 disease severity. The study was published on November 26 in Science. “The lab has been interested in understanding how individuals from diverse populations respond differently to infectious diseases,” said first author Haley Randolph, a graduate student at UChicago. “In this study, we wanted to look at the differences in how various cell types respond to viral infection.” Using single-cell RNA-sequencing, the researchers were able to examine gene expression patterns in peripheral mononuclear blood cells, a diverse set of specialized immune cells that play important roles in the body’s response to infection. They collected these cells from men of European and African...