DETECTION OF COVID-19 (SARS-COV-2) AND THEIR VIRULENCE FACTOR ORF8 GENE AMONG PATIENTS IN THI-QAR PROVINCE, IRAQ

ABSTRACT

Covid-19 viral (SARS-CoV-2) infection evolved very rapidly to spreading geographically to become a global pandemic as declared by World Health Organization (WHO) within the first months of 2020. Viral respiratory infection such as severe acute coronavirus-2 disease (SARS-CoV-2), bacterial co-infections commonly are identified and are a major cause of morbidity and mortality requiring prompt and antibacterial diagnosis. Specimens were collected from 100 patients were included 68 male and 32 female with age ranged between 16 -85 years for the period from the beginning of October 2020 to the end of March 2021. Naso-oropharyngeal swabs were collected from each person with symptoms according to the WHO guideline for SARS Cov2. The results of the viral mutations showed the open reading frame 8 (ORF8) of SARS-CoV-2. The sequences were obtained from seven patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 by PCR using ORF8 specific primer. The amplified fragment of ORF8 was 366 bp. The nucleotide sequences of the seven open reading frames of ORF8 of SARS-CoV-2 were submitted in the GenBank under the accession numbers MZ025969- MZ025975. The results of phylogenetic tree appeared that categorize of the seven ORF8 nucleotide sequences into three clades. SARS-CoV-2 ORF8 represents a major component in determining the viral pathogenicity and the outcome of the respiratory disease, and coding sequence analysis of this segment might help in track variants evolution in any location. General understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 mutations contribute to make disease progression is extremely critical not only for understanding of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis but also for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development.