The deposition of first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing results of a Bangladeshi patient by Dr. Senjuti Shaha, Dr. Samir Kumar Shaha along with their team from Child Health Research Foundation (CHRF) opened a new door for comparative analysis of the Bangladeshi SARS-CoV-2 genome with other SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences deposited in the public database. Dr. ABMM Khademul Islam and his teammates of the Epigenetic and Bioinformatics team on nCoV research at the he Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Dhaka performed the preliminary comparative analysis of the Bangladeshi SARS-CoV-2 genome with the Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 sequence and also constructed a phylogenetic tree using 350 sequences from 60 different countries. Their analyses revealed that Bangladeshi genome is highly similar (99.7% similarity) to that of reference SARS-CoV-2 isolated from Wuhan. They also demonstrated that Bangladeshi SARS-CoV-2 Genome has acquired two new mutations which have not been seen among the viruses reported so far. Additionally, Phylogenetic tree shows that this Bangladeshi SARS-CoV-2 genome isolate seems more closer to the European cluster. Mutation in the Bangladeshi SARS-CoV-2 genome also provides a basis to explain the virulence of the SARS-CoV-2 in Bangladesh.
To read the summary of the reort please click here.