HYDERABAD: As India crossed the milestone of sequencing 1,000 genomes of the coronavirus, the Bioinformatics Center of Hyderabad-based Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) has come out with an app named Genome Evolution Analysis Resource for COVID-19 (GEAR-19).
GEAR-2019 gives an interesting peak into the outcome of the efforts put in by scientists and researchers from 33 laboratories across India for sequencing 1,031 genomes of the novel coronavirus.
While the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) causes the Covid-19 infection, the virus is further subdivided into different groups known as 'clades'.
The identification of clades plays an important role in understanding the probable origin of a virus, infecting a certain population and also in testing of drugs and vaccines.
According to GEAR-2019, most of the sequences genomes fell into either the A2a clade (617 genomes) or the A3i clade (249 genomes).
GEAR-2019 also gives a timeline of the distribution of virus belonging to the different clades, in different states.
The 1,031 genomes sequenced belong to virus samples collected from patients, from 19 states.
From Telangana, 193 virus genomes have been sequenced. Of these, 109 belonged to A2a clade, 78 to A3i and six are unassigned.