Chennai: Researchers at IIT Madras are studying the high transmission rate and mortality of SARS-CoV-2, that causes Covid-19. Using computational tools, the team studied its two close variants — SARS-CoV and NL63, India Today reported.
The team set out to understand how the spike proteins (which enables the coronavirus to penetrate human cells and cause Covid-19) of these different virus strains are interacting with the ACE2 receptors of human cells and how this interaction is affecting their transmission potential and severity of the disease
‘SARS-CoV’ can be considered a ‘sibling’ of the subfamily beta coronavirus ‘SARS-CoV-2.’ The ‘NL63’ belongs to sub-family alpha coronavirus can be considered as a ‘cousin’ of SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV is more severe than SARS-CoV-2 whereas NL63 shows milder symptoms than SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.
The scientists set out to find the reason behind the mildness and severity of disease caused by these viruses. From the previous studies, it was realized that all three viruses gain entry to the human cell via ACE2 receptors which are present on human cells.
The research findings of this study have been published in the peer-reviewed international journal Proteins: Structure, Function, Bioinformatics.
The research paper can be downloaded from this link – https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/prot.26024
The research team was led by Prof. M Michael Gromiha, Department of Biotechnology, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, IIT Madras, Dr. Puneet Rawat and Dr. Sherlyn Jemimah, Research Scholars from IIT Madras. The team collaborated with Prof. PK Ponnuswamy, Former Vice-Chancellor, University of Madras, and Madurai Kamaraj University and Professor, Department of Physics, Bharathidasan University in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu, for this study.
Findings of the research team
- The interaction area between spike protein and ACE2, surrounding hydrophobicity and interaction energy plays a key role in deciding the severity and transmission potential of coronaviruses.
- The team also found that the distant cousin NL63 has unique ACE2 binding sites compared to SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.
- Less interaction area, surrounding hydrophobicity and interaction energy for the interface residues are the main reasons for the mild severity of NL63 coronavirus.
Earlier outbreaks
In 2002, one of its members SARS-CoV and in 2012, MERS-another member of the same family also spread widely.
Now, SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world causing Covid-19. Like SARS-CoV and MERS, it also spreads through sneezing, coughing, and respiratory droplets but its transmission potential turned out to be high.
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