Evolutionary and Antigenic Profiling of the Tendentious D614G Mutation of SARS-CoV-2 in Gujarat, India

Humankind has suffered many pandemics in history including measles, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and recently the novel Coronavirus disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. As of September 2021, it has affected over 200 million people and caused over 4 million deaths. India is the second most affected country in the world. Up to this date, more than 38 Lakh viral genomes have been submitted to public repositories like GISAID and NCBI to analyze the virus phylogeny and mutations. Here, we analyzed 2349 genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 submitted in GISAID by a single institute pertaining to infections from the Gujarat state to know their variants and phylogenetic distributions with a major focus on the spike protein. More than 93% of the genomes had one or more mutations in the spike glycoprotein. The D614G variant in spike protein is reported to have a very high frequency of >95% globally followed by the L452R and P681R, thus getting significant attention. The antigenic propensity of a small peptide of 29 residues from 597 to 625 of the spike protein variants having D614 and G614 showed that G614 has a little higher antigenic propensity. Thus, the D614G is the cause for higher viral antigenicity, however, it has not been reported to be effective to be causing more deaths.

Kumbh Mela Religious Gathering as a Massive Superspreading Event: Potential Culprit for the Exponential Surge of COVID-19 Cases in India

ABSTRACT. The Kumbh Mela is a significant religious gathering of millions of Hindu devotees in India. It is celebrated on certain auspicious days in the Hindu calendar and attracts millions of pilgrims across the country. Despite the religious intention of millions of Hindu devotees, it raised public health concerns as it became a massive superspreading event for COVID-19. Being the second most populous country, India became the second most affected country during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the arrival of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants and the presence of the double mutated variant, which was first identified in India, the Kumbh Mela probably aggravated the country’s COVID-19 situation which resulted in an uncontrollable second wave. Several cases of COVID-19 across India had been contact-traced to returnees from the event who acted as a nidus to help spread the infection. As a consequence, India’s healthcare system was severely challenged as a result of the overwhelming hospitalizations and increasing fatalities resulting in an acute manpower shortage in healthcare along with the depletion of drugs and medical supplies despite being one of the largest pharmaceutical hubs globally. Leaders and governments around the world should learn from India’s experience and thereby take preventive measures to manage potential superspreading events to curb the spike of COVID-19 cases.

An Analysis of Impact of Anti-dumping Duties on India–China Trade

India has imposed anti-dumping duties (ADDs) on a total of 155 commodities against China across many sectors to protect the domestic industry since 2001. The dumping of Chinese goods into Indian markets has led to the downfall and closure of many domestic industries. Under such circumstances, ADDs had been necessitated for protecting the domestic industry. As per the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, imposition of ADDs on imports is permitted, provided that the affected country establishes that the domestic industry has suffered material injury by such imports. An elaborate discussion explaining the investigation pertaining to ADD and imposition of ADD in relation with WTO rules is presented in the present article. During the period between 2014 and 2018, ADD has been imposed on a total of 121 commodities. The study finds that ADDs have been partially effective in reducing the imports of the commodities. JEL: F13

Immunogenic Peptides from Pap31 and SCS-α of Bartonella bacilliformis: One Step Closer to a Rapid Diagnostic Tool for Carrion’s Disease

Bartonella bacilliformis is the causal agent of Carrion’s disease, an overlooked illness endemic in the Andean Mountains with Peru being the most affected country. The diagnostic of this illness is a challenge due to the limited resources and the common symptomatology with other infectious diseases. The goal of this study was to identify immunogenic peptides from Pap31 and succinyl-CoA synthetase α (SCS-α) of B. bacilliformis that might be suitable for developing a serologic tool. The immunodominant character of Pap31 and SCS-α was determined by Western blotting and in-silico analysis. Subsequently, 35 peptides were selected for epitope mapping and their immunoreactivity was tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). A total of 30 sera were tested including pre-exposed people with high IgM levels for Pap31/SCS-α (23 sera), patients (2 sera) as well as 5 sera with no reactivity to Pap31/SCS-α. The results indicate that Pap31-8 (187QAIGSAILKGTKDTGT202) and SCS-α-12 (59IFASVAEGKEKTGANA74) are the most immunogenic peptides, with Pap31-8 showing potential to discriminate between B. bacilliformis and the remaining Bartonella spp., and SCS-α-12 differentiating Bartonella spp. from other microorganisms.

Assessing the Predictive Power of Online Social Media to Analyze COVID-19 Outbreaks in the 50 U.S. States

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to rage worldwide, the United States has become the most affected country, with more than 34.1 million total confirmed cases up to 1 June 2021. In this work, we investigate correlations between online social media and Internet search for the COVID-19 pandemic among 50 U.S. states. By collecting the state-level daily trends through both Twitter and Google Trends, we observe a high but state-different lag correlation with the number of daily confirmed cases. We further find that the accuracy measured by the correlation coefficient is positively correlated to a state’s demographic, air traffic volume and GDP development. Most importantly, we show that a state’s early infection rate is negatively correlated with the lag to the previous peak in Internet searches and tweeting about COVID-19, indicating that earlier collective awareness on Twitter/Google correlates with a lower infection rate. Lastly, we demonstrate that correlations between online social media and search trends are sensitive to time, mainly due to the attention shifting of the public.

Identification of Genotypic Variants and its Proteomic mutations of Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 Isolates

The second wave of COVID-19, which is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is rapidly spreading over the world. The mechanism behind the escaping from current antivirals is still not clear, due to the occurrence of continuous variants in SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Brazil is the world’s second most COVID-19-affected country. In the present study, we identified the genomic and proteomic variants of Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 isolates. We identified 16 different genotypic variants were found among the 27 isolates. The genotypes of three isolates such as Bra/1236/2021 (G15), Bra/MASP2C844R2/2020 (G11), and Bra/RJ-DCVN5/2020 (G9) have a unique mutant in NSP4 (S184N), 2’O-Mutase (R216N), membrane protein (A2V) and Envelope protein (V5A). A mutation in RdRp of SARS-CoV-2, particularly the change of Pro to Leu at 323 resulted in the stabilization of the structure in BRA/CD1739-P4/2020. NSP4, NSP5 protein mutants are more virulent in Genotype 15 and 16. A fast protein folding rate changes the structural stability and leads to escape for current antivirals. Thus, our findings help researchers to develop the best potent antivirals based on the new mutant of Brazilian isolates.

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum (Fusarium wilt).

F. oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum causes significant crop losses in several of the main cotton-producing countries. The disease is widespread in the USA, the former Soviet Union (Menlikiev, 1962) and China. In Africa, Tanzania is the worst affected country (Hillocks, 1981). Although losses nationally may not be great, estimated for instance at 0.2% for the whole of the USA in 1989 (Blasingame, 1990), losses are much greater in localized areas and for individual farmers in areas where the disease is endemic. The presence of a pathogen in a field can exclude the planting of a variety with desirable agronomic characteristics (.e.g. yield) if it is susceptible to the pathogen.

Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum (Fusarium wilt).

F. oxysporum f.sp. vasinfectum causes significant crop losses in several of the main cotton-producing countries. The disease is widespread in the USA, the former Soviet Union (Menlikiev, 1962) and China. In Africa, Tanzania is the worst affected country (Hillocks, 1981). Although losses nationally may not be great, estimated for instance at 0.2% for the whole of the USA in 1989 (Blasingame, 1990), losses are much greater in localized areas and for individual farmers in areas where the disease is endemic. The presence of a pathogen in a field can exclude the planting of a variety with desirable agronomic characteristics (.e.g. yield) if it is susceptible to the pathogen.