Relationship between the ABO Blood Group and the COVID-19 Susceptibility

Jiao Zhao; Yan Yang; Han-Ping Huang; Dong Li; Dong-Feng Gu; Xiang-Feng Lu; Zheng Zhang; Lei Liu; Ting Liu; Yu-Kun Liu; Yun-Jiao He; Bin Sun; Mei-Lan Wei; Guang-Yu Yang; Xinghuan Wang; Li Zhang; Xiao-Yang Zhou; Ming-Zhao Xing; Peng George Wang

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causing the new infectious coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), is currently spreading rapidly around the world; it has been recently declared as a pandemic by WHO. Recent clinical observation suggests that patient age, male sex and certain chronic medical conditions (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, COPD) seem to represent a risk for the infection of SARS-Cov-2 and higher disease severity 1 . There is currently no biological marker known to predict the susceptibility to COVID-19. Landsteiner's ABO blood types are carbohydrate epitopes that are present on the surface of human cells. The antigenic determinants of A and B blood groups are trisaccharide moieties GalNAcα1-3-(Fucα1,2)-Galβ-and Galα1-3-(Fucα1,2)-Galβ-, while O blood group antigen is Fucα1,2-Galβ-. While blood types are genetically inherited, the environment factors can potentially influence which blood types in a population will be passed on more frequently to the next generation. Susceptibility of viral infection has been previously found to be related to ABO blood group. For example, Norwalk virus and Hepatitis B have clear blood group susceptibility 2,3 . It was also reported that blood group O individuals were less likely to become infected by SARS coronavirus 4 . Here, we investigated the relationship between the ABO blood type and the susceptibility to COVID-19 in patients from three hospitals in Wuhan and Shenzhen, China to test if the former may be a biomarker for the latter.