New Delhi: Changes that occur in the genome of the SARS-COV-2 virus in infected people reflect the population level as a variation, according to a study that the researcher said would be a “big utility” in predicting the spread and infectivity of the viral covid strain.
Track changes that occur in the virus in the host of individuals and populations that might provide important leadership for favorable or unfavorable virus sites for SARS-COV-2 survival which causes Covid-19, the researchers said.
The team behind the latest studies including researchers from the National Disease Center and the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) in Delhi, as well as Institute of Life Sciences in Bhubaneswar, Academy for Scientific and Innovative Research in Ghaziabad, CSIR-Center for Cellular and molecular biology (CSIR-CCMB) in Hyderabad and Indian Technology Institute, Jodhpur.
Reacting to the findings of the study, the Virus Experts of the Ray’s upasana explained that the emergence of virus variants depends on the reproduction that successfully at the host.
“Mutations are a very common phenomenon in any virus life cycle.
While the virus experiences replication and multiply in the host cell, small nucleotide changes occur,” Ray, a senior scientist at the Chemical Biology Institute of Csir-India Kolkata told PTI.
“As a virus will be transmitted more, in his host, he gets many opportunities to accumulate such changes and thus the variant appears,” Ray, who was not involved in this study, said.
In unpublished studies posted on the repository of Biorxiv on July 27, the researchers analyzed the sample patients diagnosed with Covid-19 of two different pandemic time periods.
In stage 1 of this study, the team analyzed 1,347 samples collected the latest in June 2020 from China, Germany, Malaysia, England, USA, and various Indian subpopulations to understand a single nucleotide variation map (ISNV) in SARS -Cov-2 infected populations , Single nucleotide variations (SNV) are nucleotide substitutions – basic building blocks of viral genetic materials.
According to Ray, ISNV is a variation that occurs in the host.
He added that this mutation might or may not ultimately reflect at the population level.
“For intra-hosted SNVs to survive, such a variant must be able to multiply and spread and therefore build himself,” said the scientists.
The researchers observed 18,146 ISNV sites covering the virus genome, including those who defined B.1 and B.6 lineages.
The Alpha variant, first identified in the UK, the beta variant was first discovered in South Africa and Delta variant, was first reported from India, including in the SARS-COV-2 lineage.
“Interestingly, 41 percent of all unique ISNVs identified in this sample were found reported as SNV on September 30 2020 in one or more samples submitted in GISAID, increased to 80 percent on June 30, 2021,” the author of the study was recorded.
GISAID is a global science initiative and the main source that provides open access to the influenza and Coronavirus virus genome data responsible for Covid-19 pandemics.
In the phase 2 of this study, the author analyzed 1,798 samples sorted in India between November 2020 and 2021.
They found evidence that ISNV can be as time to manage into the population.
“In this sample, ISNV can be recorded to be present in the population in most deltas (B.1.617.2) and Kappa (B.1.617.1) the position of the genome that defines lineage before fixation of them as SNV in February 2021” the researchers said.
“These results highlight the importance of recording ISNV as extensions to the genome surveillance program to enable more accurate models for epidemiology of viruses,” they said.
The authors also observe ISNV in 87 percent of the site in a surge protein – the virus used to enter and infect human cells – which was recently reported to provide antibody resistance.
The vaccine is currently directed at the protein surge in the SARS-COV-2 virus.
“This mutation can have major implications in vaccine response because they can change immunogenicity,” the author said.
Immunogenicity is a vaccine ability to trigger an immune response in the body.
“This study reveals important insights on beneficial or unfavorable residues for the survival of this virus and thus can help engineering the next generation therapy targeting this protein for mutations,” Ray added.