Pathogen tracing in wastewater of a mutating virus15 May 2020 08:20
In another BB I was asked how our real-time pathogen tracing system worked on a mutating virus, as the COVID-19 virus has already seen many mutations since it's origin. This gets a little technical, but also went into explaining the difference between prevention and treatments.
All viruses mutate. Some get weaker, and it is unclear whether the new mutation infects and sickens people differently. At this time, the infection and increase/decrease in hospitalisation rates caused by the new variation seems to be similar.
More data is needed to understand the implications of the new mutations, like whether reinfections after recovery are possible, and whether the changes could affect the vaccines and treatments in development.
Mutations are when the RNA is replicated. The RNA sequence is altered. The viral RNA sequence of the virus is a single strand of multiple (AGCU) Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Uracil (Uracil in RNA and Thymine in DNA). The recent FDA approved drug Remdesivir is an inactive Adenosine that is activated once it gets inside a cell. This seeks to alter the Adenine element which (potentially) creates a defective RNA sequence that will not replicate inside the cell and spread beyond it. If achieved, this reduces the spread and (may) be responsible for the observation in the reduction in time for the patient to recover.
This RNA replication step is responsible for the spread beyond the original infected cell and also the point where mutations can occur naturally. There is a quality control system, inside each cell, that can identify a defective RNA sequence and fix it, but that is for a deeper discussion.
Remdesivir, is a treatment operates inside a cell. Integumen's tracing system operates outside of cells and makes use of a clone of the ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme II) receptor to capture the spike protein (S-Protein) on the coronavirus before it enters the cells, that are shed from the host and found in faecal matter in wastewater, filtered through our system.
The objective of our system is to highlight that there is an incidence of infection in the vicinity of the alarm, so hotspots can be identified immediately, which requires further investigation of individuals. For example in office buildings, hotels, nursing homes, hotels, cruise ships, ferries (and potentially individual passenger aircraft) constant monitoring can highlight that the target pathogen (Sars-CoV-2, Norovirus, Enterovirus, or bacteria such as e.coli, legionella, etc.) has been detected.
The alert allows an initiation of tracing and individual tracing of all those at risk in a building or on a passenger vessel.
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