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27 Jul 2020

Studying COVID-19’s envelope protein

By Carolyn E. Unck | KAUST Discovery A likeness between genes of the SARS and COVID-19 viruses could inform research into potential treatments Understanding any similarities between SARS and COVID-19 inflammation could help in a clinical setting. A protein in the viruses causing COVID-19 and SARS is almost identical. Researchers propose testing if targeting COVID-19 with FDA-approved drugs, already tested in mice infected with SARS, could improve the outcomes for COVID-19 patients experiencing severe respiratory symptoms. The finding was a collaborative effort from teams at KAUST following a comparison of Betacoronavirus genomes. “We have long-standing expertise in analyzing genomic data at KAUST’s Computational Bioscience Research Center,” says molecular biologist, Takashi Gojobori. Gojobori, Carlos M. Duarte and a team of scientists compared the genomes of 24 Betacoronaviruses, including four SARS-CoV-2 viruses, which causes COVID-19. Two of the four were sequenced in the United States, while the other two were sequenced in China. “SARS-CoV-2 appears to have recently evolved from other related Betacoronaviruses, such as the ones causing SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS),” explains Intikhab Alam, first author of the study. “We wanted to understand the genetic make up of SARS-CoV-2. Seeing what has changed might help find ways to detect the virus and understand its […]