Radiation resistance of novel SARS-CoV-2: A Monte Carlo investigation on characterization and determination of gamma-ray attenuation properties

In late December 2019, the new viral pneumonia outbreak was first detected in Wuhan, the largest metropolitan area in China's Hubei province. The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2), was named as Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by World Health Organization (WHO). It is well known that radiation can cause mutations in bacteria and viruses. Therefore, characterization of the radiation resistance and interaction properties of viruses provides the opportunity in terms of risk assessment and future aspects. In this study, 3 types of viruses (SARS-CoV-CAS Number 587886-51-9, Influenza-CAS Number 141368-69-6 and SARS-CoV-2 GlycoProtein 6VSB.) were modeled with the Monte Carlo simulation method (MCNPX version 2.6.0). The vital radiation attenuation properties such as linear attenuation coefficients, energy absorption buildup factors (EABF), exposure buildup factors (EBF), relative dose distributions (RDD) were examined using advanced simulation methods. Moreover, the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is modelled from the structures in the Protein Data Bank. As a result of the study, we could say that the most radiation resistance was observed in SARS-CoV when compared with Influenza and Covid-19. It could be one of the reasons for SARS-CoV’s resistance to mutation from its outbreak time. On the other hand, Covid-19 is more resistant to radiation than Influenza. Therefore it could be expected that Covid-19 would have the similar behaviors against ionizing radiation as Influenza has.