Genomics-led insight into the coronavirus evolution, pathogenicity and management

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has so far been the most devastating pandemic ever faced by mankind. Caused by the highly transmissible severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the disease is becoming deadly due to frequent emergence of variants. The virus belongs to the group, Betacoronaviruses, and shares more than 90% amino acid identity with SARS-CoV. The SARSCoV-2 possess a single-stranded positive-sense RNA which is the largest known viral RNA genome consisting of 25,000-30,000 nucleotides with 14 ORFs. The 3'-region of the genome harbours four structural proteins, namely;the spike, nucleocapsid, envelope and the membrane proteins;the S protein plays the most important role during infection. Genomics-led studies are pre-requisites to understand the pathogenicity of any pathogen and for devising its management strategies. The availability of SARS-CoV-2 sequence data and suitable bioinformatics platforms have allowed researchers to identify potential therapeutic targets and to predict immune response for accelerating therapeutics and vaccine development. A plethora of such options are available that includes repurposing existing drugs, monoclonal antibodies, anti-inflammatory agents, etc. Moreover, different types of vaccines such as mRNA-based, viral vector, inactivated virus, etc., with different efficacy levels have been approved. However, their efficacy might get compromised with time, particularly due to frequent mutations in the viral genomes. Here, we provide a comprehensive insight into the genome structure, evolution, pathogenicity as well as the achieved success and limitations in management of this notorious virus.