Journal

Abstract:

To combat highly infectious Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), scientists and researchers are toiling hard globally to develop effective drugs and vaccines. By exploring the structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 can be a feasible way to find an effective vaccine. In this study by using in-silico tools, we recommended B-cell and T-cell epitopes of spike protein from a Bangladeshi isolate which can be considered for incorporation into a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2. Homology modeling, energy minimization process, and finally Ramachandran model were used for the prediction of a more stable conformation of the spike protein. The most important peptides were screened through the VaxiJen server followed by the IEDB server and CTLPred Score predicted and analyzed the desired epitopes. In the final analysis, the peptide EVRQIAPGQTGKIADY (starting from 91) showed the highest antigenicity score (1.3837) as a B-cell epitope although GSTPCNGVEGFNCYFP, starting at 161, showed the highest score (0.91) in an initial analysis. On the contrary, as a T-cell epitope, 71-KLNDLCFTNV- 80 was found with the highest antigenicity score (2.6927) which was also found as an epitope in further analysis. A combination of B-cell and T-cell epitopes may evoke a humoral and cell-mediated immune response which will possibly lead to an effective vaccine. Further, the various computational analyses will provide valuable information that will pave the way for modeling a novel vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.

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GUT SYMPTOMS LINKED WITH COVID-19: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Journal Name: Journal of microbiology, biotechnology and food sciences

Abstract

The most prevalent symptoms at the onset of COVID-19 are fever, cough, fatigue, myalgia, and dyspnea (shortness of breath). Initially, it was thought that the virus only causes respiratory distress in patients until the viral RNA has been detected in the patient’s stool. Recently, several new studies have depicted that COVID-19 has impact on gut patients. We hypothesized that, there may have a link between gut symptoms and COVID-19. Therefore, the present study was reviewed to explore this study question; searches were conducted to identify the articles related to the association between gut symptoms and COVID-19, which were published between 2019 to 2020. Multiple searches were conducted in Google Scholar and ResearchGate using keywords. In this review, a total of 2639 cases of COVID-19 from 20 articles had been analyzed with special emphasize on gut symptoms. Among 20 studies, Diarrhea (highest 71.62% and lowest 2%) was the most prevalent symptoms, respectively, nausea (highest 17.1% and lowest 1%) & vomiting (highest 16.7% and lowest 1%), anorexia (highest 66.7% and lowest 17.9%), and abdominal pain (highest 8.8% and lowest 1.9%). Along with the main symptoms, we studied some commonly associated symptoms, such as, fever (highest 98.6% and lowest 55.6%) and coughing (highest 91.67% and lowest 35%) were heavily linked with COVID 19. Despite all the GI symptoms associated with COVID 19, there are currently no recommendations for a diagnostic approach in the presence of gastrointestinal symptoms associated with the corona virus, and there is no definitive knowledge of the role of COVID-19 in the gastrointestinal diseases. So, further studies are needed to identify the better relationship between gut symptoms and SARS-CoV-2 for suppressing the spread of COVID-19.

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