SARS-CoV-2 has impacted various ethnic groups all over the world and scientists have found that populations carrying similar long DNA segments (‘homozygous’ or identical genes inherited from parents) in their genome are most likely to be more susceptible to the infection.
CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB)’s scientist Kumarasamy Thangaraj, who is now the director of Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, and Benarus Hindu University (BHU)’s Gyaneshwer Chaubey jointly led the genomic analysis of several Indian populations following reports that coronavirus has impacted various ethnic indigenous groups across the world.
India is home to several indigenous and smaller communities, including Andaman Islanders, who are living in isolation for tens of thousands of years and the latest study by the scientists show “high frequency of contiguous lengths of homozygous genes among Onge, Jarawa (Andaman tribes) and a few more populations, who are in isolation and follow a strict endogamy of marrying within a community or tribe, making them highly susceptible to COVID-19”.
Dr Thangaraj, who traced the origin of Andaman Islanders, said, “We have investigated a high-density genomic data of more than 1,600 individuals from 227 ethnic populations. We have also assessed the ACE2 gene variants that make individuals susceptible to COVID-19, and found that the Jarawa and Onge populations have high frequency of these mutations.”
Mr Chaubey, professor of Molecular Anthropology at BHU, said, “There have been some speculations on the effect of COVID-19 among isolated populations. However, for the first time, we have used genomic data to access the risk of COVID on the small and isolated populations.”
“Results obtained from this study suggest that we need to have high priority protection and utmost care for the isolated populations, so that we don’t lose some of the living treasures of modern human evolution,” said CCMB director Vinay Kumar Nandicoori.
Other participants of this study include Prajjval Pratap Singh, VN Mishra, Royana Singh and Abhishek Pathak from BHU, Varanasi; Prashanth Suravajhala from Amrita University, Kerala; Pratheusa Machha from CCMB; Rakesh Tamang from Calcutta University, Ashutosh K Rai from Saudi Arabia, Pankaj Shrivastava from FSL-MP, and Keshav K Singh from University of Alabama, USA.
The research has been published online in the journal ‘Genes and Immunity’ ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41435-021-00150-8 ).
