Interplay between the genetics of personality traits, severe psychiatric disorders and COVID-19 host genetics in the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection

Heilbronner, Urs; Streit, Fabian; Vogl, Thomas; Senner, Fanny; Schaupp, Sabrina K.; Reich-Erkelenz, Daniela; Papiol, Sergi; Oraki Kohshour, Mojtaba; Klöhn-Saghatolislam, Farahnaz; Kalman, Janos L.; Heilbronner, Maria; Gade, Katrin; Comes, Ashley L.; Budde, Monika; Andlauer, Till F. M.; Anderson-Schmidt, Heike; Adorjan, Kristina; Stürmer, Til; Loerbroks, Adrian; Amelang, Manfred; Poisel, Eric; Foo, Jerome; Heilmann-Heimbach, Stefanie; Forstner, Andreas J.; Degenhardt, Franziska; Zimmermann, Jörg; Wiltfang, Jens; von Hagen, Martin; Spitzer, Carsten; Schmauss, Max; Reininghaus, Eva; Reimer, Jens; Konrad, Carsten; Juckel, Georg; Lang, Fabian U.; Jäger, Markus; Figge, Christian; Fallgatter, Andreas J.; Dietrich, Detlef E.; Dannlowski, Udo; Baune, Bernhardt T.; Arolt, Volker; Anghelescu, Ion-George; Nöthen, Markus M.; Witt, Stephanie H.; Andreassen, Ole A.; Chen, Chi-Hua; Falkai, Peter; Rietschel, Marcella; Schulze, Thomas G.; Schulte, Eva C.

BACKGROUND: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, with its impact on our way of life, is affecting our experiences and mental health. Notably, individuals with mental disorders have been reported to have a higher risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2. Personality traits could represent an important determinant of preventative health behaviour and, therefore, the risk of contracting the virus. AIMS: We examined overlapping genetic underpinnings between major psychiatric disorders, personality traits and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. METHOD: Linkage disequilibrium score regression was used to explore the genetic correlations of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) susceptibility with psychiatric disorders and personality traits based on data from the largest available respective genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In two cohorts (the PsyCourse (n = 1346) and the HeiDE (n = 3266) study), polygenic risk scores were used to analyse if a genetic association between, psychiatric disorders, personality traits and COVID-19 susceptibility exists in individual-level data. RESULTS: We observed no significant genetic correlations of COVID-19 susceptibility with psychiatric disorders. For personality traits, there was a significant genetic correlation for COVID-19 susceptibility with extraversion (P = 1.47 × 10(−5); genetic correlation 0.284). Yet, this was not reflected in individual-level data from the PsyCourse and HeiDE studies. CONCLUSIONS: We identified no significant correlation between genetic risk factors for severe psychiatric disorders and genetic risk for COVID-19 susceptibility. Among the personality traits, extraversion showed evidence for a positive genetic association with COVID-19 susceptibility, in one but not in another setting. Overall, these findings highlight a complex contribution of genetic and non-genetic components in the interaction between COVID-19 susceptibility and personality traits or mental disorders.