Transcriptome‐wide summary data‐based Mendelian randomization analysis reveals 38 novel genes associated with severe COVID‐19

Severe COVID‐19 has a poor prognosis, while the genetic mechanism underlying severe COVID‐19 remains largely unknown. We aimed to identify genes that are potentially causally associated with severe COVID‐19. We conducted a summary data‐based Mendelian randomization (SMR) analysis using expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data from 49 different tissues as the exposure and three COVID‐19‐phenotypes (very severe respiratory confirmed COVID‐19 [severe COVID‐19], hospitalized COVID‐19, and SARS‐CoV‐2 infection) as the outcomes. SMR using multiple SNPs was used as a sensitivity analysis to reduce false positive rate. Multiple testing was corrected using the false discovery rate (FDR) q‐value. We identified 309 significant gene‐trait associations (FDR q value