An interactive COVID-19 virus Mutation Tracker (CovMT) with a particular focus on critical mutations in the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) region of the Spike protein
Type
PreprintAuthors
Alam, Intikhab
Radovanovic, Aleksandar
Incitti, Roberto
Kamau, Allan
Alarawi, Muhammed
Azhar, Esam I.
Gojobori, Takashi

KAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) DivisionBioscience Program
Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC)
Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Science and Engineering (CEMSE) Division
Date
2021-01-25Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/667736
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Almost one year has passed since the appearance of SARS-CoV-2, causing the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of confirmed SARS-Cov-2 cases worldwide has now reached ~92 million, with 2 million reported deaths (https://covid19.who.int). Nearly 365,000 SARS-Cov-2 genomes were sequenced from COVID-19 samples and added to public resources such as GISAID (https://gisaid.org). With the vaccines becoming available or entering trials (https://covid19.trackvaccines.org), it is vital to keep track of mutations in the genome of SARS-CoV-2, especially in the Spike protein Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) region, which could have a potential impact on disease severity and treatment strategies. In the wake of a recent increase in cases with a potentially more infective RBD mutation (N501Y) in the United Kingdom, countries worldwide are concerned about the spread of this or similar variants. Impressive sampling and timely increase in sequencing efforts related to COVID-19 in the United Kingdom helped detect and monitor the spread of the new N501Y variant. Similar sequencing efforts are needed in other countries for timely tracking of this or different variants. To track geographic sequencing efforts and mutations, with a particular focus on RBD region of the Spike protein, we present our daily updated COVID-19 virus Mutation Tracker system, see https://www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/covmt.Citation
Alam, I., Radovanovic, A., Incitti, R., Kamau, A., Alarawi, M., Azhar, E. I., & Gojobori, T. (2021). An interactive COVID-19 virus Mutation Tracker (CovMT) with a particular focus on critical mutations in the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) region of the Spike protein. doi:10.1101/2021.01.22.21249716Sponsors
We are thankful to KAUST Information Technology (IT) and KAUST supercomputing laboratory (KSL) teams for maintaining the computational resources and help in publishing the CovMT website. We pay special thanks to GISAID for providing daily updates on sequenced isolates, worldwide. This work is supported by King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST) grant for COVID-19 research, number 0004-002-01-20-5.Publisher
Cold Spring Harbor LaboratoryAdditional Links
http://medrxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/2021.01.22.21249716https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2021/01/25/2021.01.22.21249716.full.pdf
ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1101/2021.01.22.21249716