Novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and Other Coronaviruses: A Genome-wide Comparative Annotation and Analysis

Novel strain of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) causes mild to severe respiratory illness. The early symptoms may be fever, dry cough, sour throat, and difficulty in breathing which may lead to death in severe cases. Compared to previous outbreaks like SARS-CoV and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), SARS-CoV2 disease (COVID-19) outbreak has been much distressing due to its high rate of infection but low infection fatality rate (IFR) with 1.4% around the world. World Health Organization (WHO) has declared (COVID-19) a pandemic on March 11, 2020. In the month of January 2020, the whole genome of SARS-CoV2 was sequenced which made work easy for researchers to develop diagnostic kits and to carry out drug repurposing to effectively alleviate the pandemic situation in the world. Now, it is important to understand why this virus has high rate of infectivity or is there any factor involved at the genome level which actually facilitates this virus infection globally? In this study, we have extensively analyzed the whole genomes of different coronaviruses infecting humans and animals in different geographical locations around the world. The main aim of the study is to identify the similarity and the mutational adaptation of the coronaviruses from different host and geographical locations to the SARS-CoV2 and provide a better strategy to understand the mutational rate for specific target-based drug designing. This study is focused to every annotation in a comparative manner which includes SNPs, repeat analysis with the different categorization of the short-sequence repeats and long-sequence repeats, different UTR's, transcriptional factors, and the predicted matured peptides with the specific length and positions on the genomes. The extensive analysis on SNPs revealed that Wuhan SARS-CoV2 and Indian SARS-CoV2 are having only eight SNPs. Collectively, phylogenetic analysis, repeat analysis, and the polymorphism revealed the genomic conserveness within the SARS-CoV2 and few other coronaviruses with very less mutational chances and the huge distance and mutations from the few other species.

Automated summary

This study extensively analyzes the whole genomes of different coronaviruses infecting humans and animals in different geographical locations, aiming to identify the similarity and mutational adaptations of these viruses to SARS-CoV2 and provide insights for specific target-based drug designing. The analysis reveals genetic conserveness within SARS-CoV2 and a few other coronaviruses, with minimal mutational chances and significant differences from other species.