CSIRO opens a new way of understanding the evolving strains of SARS-CoV-2

Researchers from CSIRO, Australia’s national scientific agency, have unveiled a new approach to analyze the genetic codes, or model, of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

The findings will help researchers better understand how virus strains evolve and help identify new groups of the virus.

Analysis of global data on the published genomic sequences of this new coronavirus will help accelerate our understanding of this complex disease.

The researchers developed a new visualization platform, supported by bioinformatic algorithms originally used to analyze the human genome, to identify differences between the thousands of genetic sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

CSIRO Chief Executive Dr. Larry Marshall said knowing the genetic code was vital.

“The more we know about this virus, the better armed we will be to fight it,” said Dr. Marshall.

“This highly complex analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome sequence has already helped determine which virus strains are suitable for testing vaccines underway at the Australian Center for Disease Preparation in Geelong, the only facility in high level of biocontainment of its kind in the southern hemisphere. ”

Dr. Denis Bauer, CSIRO Bioinformatics Team Leader, said that as the virus evolves, this plan becomes increasingly important, effectively because it contains instructions on the behavior of the virus and what type of disease it can cause.

“Globally, there are now a large number of individual virus sequences,” said Dr. Bauer, who is also an honorary associate professor at Macquarie University, Australia.

“Assessing the evolutionary distance between these data points and visualizing them helps researchers understand the different strains of the virus, including where they come from and how they continue to evolve.”

Professor SS Vasan, CSIRO Team Leader of Dangerous Pathogens, who is leading the work on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and vaccine evaluation studies and is the corresponding author of the paper, said the first 181 published genomic sequences of the Current outbreaks of COVID-19 were analyzed to understand how changes in the virus could affect its behavior and impact.

“This RNA virus is expected to evolve into a number of different groups that share mutations, which is what we have confirmed and visualized,” said Professor Vasan, who holds an honorary chair at York University, UK.

“At this time, we do not expect it to affect the development and evaluation of COVID-19 vaccines, therapies and diagnostics, but it is important information to monitor as preclinical and clinical studies progress.

“To allow this, we ask the international research community to share unidentified details of the severity and outcome of the case, and other relevant metadata, such as comorbidities and smoking, along with the genomic sequences of the virus.”

CSIRO Electronic Health Research Center CEO David Hansen said the work shows the importance of cross-collaboration between established and emerging disciplines of bioinformatics, genomics, vaccinology and virology.

“Following the scientific peer-reviewed open publication process like this is a vital component of CSIRO’s response.” Dr. Hansen said.

“The advantage of the data visualization platform is that it highlights the evolving genetic mutations of the virus as it continues to change and adapt to new environments,” said Dr. Bauer, who is the first author of this article.

“The more informed we are about genetic differences and their likely consequences on disease progression, the better we can address the disease with diagnoses and treatments.”

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The peer-reviewed research paper, “Supporting the Pandemic Response Using Genomics and Bioinformatics: A Case Study of the Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak,” is published in the Transboundary and emerging diseases – found here
http: // onlinelibrary.wileycom /doi /ABS/10)1111 /tbed13588

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