ABSTRACT
Microsatellites or simple sequence repeats are motifs of 1 to 6 nucleotides in length present in both coding and non-coding regions of DNA. These are found widely distributed in the whole genome of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, bacteria, and viruses and are used as molecular markers in studying DNA variations, gene regulation, genetic diversity and evolutionary studies, etc. However, in vitro microsatellite identification proves to be time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, the present research has been focused on using an in-house built java pipeline to identify, analyse, design primers and find related statistics of perfect and compound microsatellites in the seven complete genome sequences of coronavirus, including the genome of coronavirus disease 2019, where the host is Homo sapiens. Based on search criteria among seven genomic sequences, it was revealed that the total number of perfect simple sequence repeats (SSRs) found to be in the range of 76 to 118 and compound SSRs from 01 to10, thus reflecting the low conversion of perfect simple sequence to compound repeats. Furthermore, the incidence of SSRs was insignificant but positively correlated with genome size (R2 = 0.45, p > 0.05), with simple sequence repeats relative abundance (R2 = 0.18, p > 0.05) and relative density (R2 = 0.23, p > 0.05). Dinucleotide repeats were the most abundant in the coding region of the genome, followed by tri, mono, and tetra. This comparative study would help us understand the evolutionary relationship, genetic diversity, and hypervariability in minimal time and cost.
ABSTRACT
Background:Healthcare workers (HCWs) have high risk of contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) due to the increased likelihood of clinical exposure during patient management. The study objective was to determine the seroprevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and its predictors among hospital employees. Methods:The cross-sectional study was conducted in a teaching hospital from August 2020 to September 2020, among 1401 employees, including 1217 healthcare workers in New Delhi, India. The serum samples were examined for IgG an- tibodies to SARS-CoV-2 using the COVID KavachTM-Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG Antibody Detection ELISA kit. Data were col- lected electronically using the EpiCollect mobile platform. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results:A total of 169 (12.1%) participants had detectable IgG antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. The highest seropositivity rate was observed in the administrative staff (20.1%), while it was lowest among medical doctors (5.5%) (p<0.001). Conclusions:The probability of HCW-to-HCW, or patient-to-HCW transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was found to be lower than the risk of acquisition of infection from general population