Pandemic analysis of infection and death correlated with genomic Orf10 mutation in SARS-CoV-2 victims.

Yang, De-Ming; Lin, Fan-Chi; Tsai, Pin-Hsing; Chien, Yueh; Wang, Mong-Lien; Yang, Yi-Ping; Chang, Tai-Jay

BACKGROUND Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues the pandemic spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), over 60 million people confirmed infected and at least 1.8 million dead. One of the most known features of this RNA virus is its easiness to be mutated. In late 2020, almost no region of this SARS-CoV-2 genome can be found completely conserved within the original Wu-Han coronavirus. Any information of the SARS-CoV-2 variants emerged through as time being will be evaluated for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19. METHODS We extracted more than two million data of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients from the open COVID-19 dashboard. The sequences of the 38-aminoi acid putative Orf10 protein within infected patients were gather output through from National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the mutation rates in each position were analyzed and presented in each month of 2020. The mutation rates of A8 and V30 within orf10 are displayed in selected counties: America, India, German and Japan. RESULTS The numbers of COVID-19 patients are correlated to the death numbers, but not with the death rates (stable and lower than 3%). The amino acid positions locating at A8(F/G/L), I13 and V30(L) within the Orf10 sequence stay the highest mutation rate; N5, N25 and N36 rank at the lowest one. A8F expressed highly dominant in Japan (over 80%) and German (around 40%) coming to the end of 2020, but no significant finding in other countries. CONCLUSION The results demonstrate via mutation analysis of Orf10 can be further combined with advanced tools such as molecular simulation, artificial intelligence (AI) and biosensors that can practically revealed for protein interactions and thus to imply the authentic orf10 function of SARS-CoV-2 in the future.