Hyderabad:Scientists from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) have identified some key genomic features of SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19. The researchers have also detected other high-fatality coronaviruses that distinguish them from other members of the coronavirus family.
The findings of the scientists with genome analysis could help to predict how severe future coronavirus disease outbreaks will be. The work may also help them detect animal coronaviruses that have the potential to infect humans.
COVID-19 has now claimed more than 380,000 lives worldwide. This crisis prompts an urgent need to understand the evolutionary history and genomic features that contribute to the rampant spread of SARS-CoV-2.
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“In this work, we set out to identify genomic features unique to those coronaviruses that cause severe disease in humans,” said Dr Eugene Koonin, an NIH Distinguished Investigator in the intramural research program of NLM’s National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the lead author of the study.
“We were able to identify several features that are not found in less virulent coronaviruses and that could be relevant for pathogenicity in humans. The actual demonstration of the relevance of these findings will come from direct experiments that are currently getting underway,” Koonin said.
According to reports, the researchers used comparative genomics and machine learning techniques to compare the genome of SARS-CoV-2 against the genomes of other coronaviruses. They also identified protein features specific to SARS-CoV-2 and other high-fatality coronavirus strains. The identified features correspond with the high fatality rate of these coronaviruses, as well as their ability to move from animal to human hosts.
These features include insertions of specific stretches of amino acids into two virus proteins, the nucleocapsid and the spike. They are found in all three high-fatality coronaviruses and their closest relatives that infect animals, such as bats, but not in four other human coronaviruses that cause non-fatal disease, reports said.
“This innovative research is critical to improving researchers’ understanding of SARS-CoV-2 and aid in the response to COVID-19. Predictions made through this analysis can inform possible targets for diagnostics and interventions,” said NLM Director Patricia Flatley Brennan.
Notably, NLM, part of the NIH, is a leader in research in biomedical informatics and data science, and the world’s largest biomedical library. NLM conducts and supports research in methods for recording, storing, retrieving, preserving, and communicating health information.
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