“The problem is that traditional testing is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s a very slow and linear process.” – Manoj Gopalakrishnan
SARS-CoV-2(severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) also known as COVID-19 was the cause for the global pandemic crisis from 2019 to 2021. More than 5,00,000 people died across the world. The unique and constant genetic mutation of this virus created difficulty in biological research. It causes pneumonia in the lungs which ultimately leads to death. To extinguish this fatal cause and to provide treatment for the disease, bioinformatics tools played a vital role in performing research.
These bioinformatics tools are extensively used in the identification of the gene that is responsible for the infectious disease, characterization and prediction of the protein structure of the SARS-CoV-2 and treatment.
About COVID 19:
SARS-CoV-2 which causes respiratory illness is minute in size and contains a single stranded RNA. This virus’s genome size is extremely small and it uses effective methods to maximize the coding potential of genomes. The following steps are a part of the SARS-CoV-2 life cycle in host cells:
- Attachment with the host cell receptor (Ig-like receptors).
- Penetration (endocytosis).
- Un-coating- when the virus’s S-protein attaches to the cellular ACE2 receptor. It changes conformation, and the virus’s envelope fuses with the cellular membrane via the endosomal route.
- Virus releases RNA into the host cell genome. This RNA is made into multiple copies inside the cell.
- Then assembled in the ER and Golgi, transported by vesicles, and discharged outside of the cell.
BIOINFORMATICS TOOLS AND SOFTWARE:
These tools are very crucial in introducing novel treatment approaches and to develop effective prevention strategies. There are more bioinformatics tools that are used in research, among them few have been listed down:
- Next generation sequencing(NGS): NGS has been applied to the study of COVID-19 and has greatly promoted SARS-CoV-2 origin tracing. It also acts as a tool for COVID-19 diagnosis, monitoring new strains and phylodynamic modeling in epidemiology.
- BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool): It is used to compare the novel sequence of protein or nucleotide sequence with template sequences or previously characterized genes in the database. This helps in deciding which family COVID-19 belongs to.
- Tandem repeat finder: Is the database software tool used for identifying the tandem repeats in the sequence. Tandem repeats, which means consisting of two or more nucleotides placed very close to each other in the DNA sequence.
- Genome-wide association study (GWAS): It’s an approach that involves scanning biomarkers such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) from DNA of many people in order to find the genetic variation, associated with a disease field phenotype. Once new genetic association is identified, researchers use this information to develop better strategies like, to detect, prevent and treat the disease.
- Computer-aided drug design (CADD): It includes finding, developing and analyzing medicines and related biological active compounds by computer methodologies. The CADD is considered as a challenging practice because of its proper algorithms including the development of digital repositories for the study of chemical interaction relationships, computer programs for designing compounds with physicochemical characteristics. It also speeds up drug discovery and development for scientific research.
CYTOKINE STORM(CS) IN COVID 19:
CS is when the immune system overreacts to an infection, causing damage to healthy cells and tissues around the body. The CS could be one of the reasons why COVID 19 has been so deadly. Researchers are studying CS through reviewing the literature and data analysis. A unique computational approach looking at the whole system will help us understand how this differs from other viruses, which is unique to SARS-COV-2. This approach could help explain additional symptoms we see with COVID 19 like stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea. And it helps in understanding how our immune system reacts to the illness.
CONCLUSION:
The sudden pandemic was intimidating for people to overcome. However, thanks to advances in bioinformatics we were able to fight against the virus. Based on the tools and software’s, we can perform our corona virus studies easily with accurate results. And in future we will be able to fight new mutations of COVID 19 or any other kind of pandemic that is caused by other forms of viruses using advanced bioinformatics technology.
Written by : J. Jayashree ,2nd year B.Sc Biotechnology
Crescent Bioinformatics Association 
