Genomic Characterization of SARS-CoV-2

Coronaviruses is associated with three big public health nightmares in the 21st century globally, such as acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV, in 2002), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV, in 2012), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2, in 2020). They have caused respiratory diseases in humans, particularly in the elderly, children, and pre-existing comorbidities and immunocompromised patients. SARS-CoV-2 was first recorded in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, Chinathat severely affecting the world economy by more than $1 trillion. It consists of an enveloped lipid bilayer and a positive-sense RNA genome. The genome size is approximately 30 kb. The SARSCoV- 2 structure consists of many essential proteins such as spike glycoprotein (S), membrane (M), envelope (E), and nucleocapsid (NC). This chapter highlights the updated knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 infections such as current and background history, phylogenetic tree analysis of SARS-CoV-2, expression of ACE2 genes in human tissues, phylogenic of S surface glycoprotein gene, M protein, E protein, NC protein, evolutionary resemblance/comparison with SARS-CoV-2 and MERS gene, the role of replication of novel strain lead to COVID-19, factors involve in COVID-19 pathogenesis and conserved and non-conserved gene of SARS-CoV-2. This study may be a little supportive of the battle against COVID-19 infection worldwide.

Keywords: ACE2, Evolution, Genome, Replication, SARS-CoV-2, Spike protein.