Biological Aging, Immune Phenotypes, and Susceptibility to COVID-19 and Sepsis: A Mendelian Randomization Study.

Abstract

Aging is a biological process characterized by time-dependent cellular and functional decline, leading to progressive deterioration of physiological integrity. Growing evidence suggests that biological aging is accompanied by increased morbidity and mortality of COVID-19. Biological aging may serve as biomarkers for assessing immune health and improving risk stratification. The underlying genetic phenotypes of aging are complex. We used multivariate genome-wide association data with multidimensional aging traits 'MV-Age' and telomere length (TL) to assess genetically informed associations between biological aging signatures and COVID-19 as well as sepsis. To inform potential public health strategies, we also performed Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to explore whether biological aging may mediate the associations of modifiable lifestyle and infectious disease. We next examined biological aging-associated immunocompetence in relation to COVID-19 and sepsis. Our findings provide a detailed landscape of immune-senescence with genetic association to biological aging and COVID-19 as well as sepsis, facilitating the development of advanced biological aging signature, assessing interventions, and studying reversibility of age-associated infectious changes. Our study further found specific immunocyte phenotypes that could significantly improve clinical outcomes in COVID-19 and sepsis through their relationship with healthy biological aging.