HYDERABAD: City-based AIG Hospitals, a unit of Asian Institute of Gastroenterology, is conducting a clinical trial to learn about the genetic mutation in Covid-affected people that made them vulnerable to the disease. This, in turn, would help identify targets for the development of drugs to fight the virus.
According to the hospital officials, the State government has agreed to provide blood samples of Covid-19 patients for the said trial and the research work has already begun.As per information available with the CTRI registry, the scientific title of the study is ‘Putative role of TMPRSS2 a serine protease in the pathogenesis of Covid-19’ and the target sample size for the trial is 200 persons.
A summary of clinical trial says that though genetic mutations in novel-Coronavirus are being studied by many, there is a dearth of research in human genetic mutation, which makes them susceptible to the virus. This is what the AIG Hospitals is looking to explore, it adds.
The mechanism, which facilitates entry of novel-Coronavirus into a human cell, involves three main parts. While one of them is the spike protein of the virus, the other two are present in the human cell — ACE2 receptor and an enzyme known as Transmembrane protease, serine 2 (TMPRSS2).
As part of the clinical trial, researchers would study ACE2 receptor and TMPRSS2 serine protease in blood samples collected from Covid-19 patients and analyse the presence of mutations in them, which might have made them susceptible to the infection. They would also be studying the mechanism of how these mutations facilitate the entry of the virus into a human cell, employing bioinformatic tools and in vitro testing.