Ribonucleic acid genome mutations induced by the Casimir effect.

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we investigate the Casimir effect within a virus RNA, particularizing the study to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Then, we discuss the possibility of occurring damage or mutation in its genome due to the presence of quantum vacuum fluctuations inside and around the RNA ribbon. For this, we consider the geometry and the nontrivial topology of the viral RNA as having a simple helical structure. We initially compute the non-thermal Casimir energy associated to that geometry, considering boundary conditions that constrain the zero point oscillations of a massless scalar field to the cylindrical cavity containing a helix pitch of RNA ribbon. Then we extend the obtained result to the electromagnetic field and, following, we calculate the probability of occurring damage or mutation in RNA by using the normalized inverse exponential distribution, which suppresses very low energies, and consider cutoff (threshold) energies corresponding to UV-A and UV-C rays, surely responsible by mutations. Then, by taking into account UV-A, we arrive at a mutation rate per base per infection cycle, which in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 is non-negligible. We find a maximum value of this mutation rate for an RNA ribbon radius, applying it for SARS-CoV-2, in particular. We also calculate a characteristic longitudinal oscillation frequency for the helix pitch value corresponding to the local minimum of the Casimir energy. Finally, we consider thermal fluctuations of classical and quantum nature and show that the corresponding probability of mutation is completely negligible for that virus. Therefore, we conclude that only the nontrivial topology and the geometric attributes of the RNA molecule contribute to the possible mutations caused by quantum vacuum fluctuations in the viral genome.