association between the ace i/d variant and covid-19 susceptibility and severity; a meta-analysis

Aims: several studies investigated the association of ace i/d polymorphism with the risk and severity of covid-19 infection.  however, the information in each of the published studies is limited, and the results were inconsistent or even contradictory. accordingly, this meta-analysis evaluated the association between ace i/d polymorphism and covid-19 susceptibility and severity. materials & methods: two investigators independently searched the pubmed, embase, google scholar, scopus, and science direct databases. five studies including 1029 cases and 3561 controls were retrieved to evaluate the association between ace i/d polymorphism and the risk of covid-19. furthermore, a meta-analysis of the correlation between the ace i/d variant and the severity of infection covered 5 case-control studies, including 264 sever-cases and 447 mild cases. findings: there was no association between the ace i/d variant in all genetic models and covid-19 susceptibility. however, our analysis revealed that there was a significant association between ace i/d variant in the allele contrast (95% ci=0.5291-0.8353; p<0.001), recessive (95% ci=0.4268-0.9172; p=0.01) and dominant (95% ci=0.3974-0.8092; p=0.001) models and severity of covid-19. conclusion: ace i/d polymorphism is associated with the severity of covid-19 infection. there is no association between the ace i/d variant in all genetic models and covid-19 susceptibility.