The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) spread worldwide in no time.
Finally, the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic in March 2020. The
severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) can mutate, and many
mutations have been observed worldwide. The severity of symptoms varies from mild
to critical cases, and the incubation period ranges from 5-14 days. Various studies have
shown that the diversity of SARS-CoV-2 within the hosts is prevalent, and some
genomes are more susceptible to the alterations due to mutation. Some of the tissues
that exhibited the highest ACE2 expression in different host tissues (humans) were
kidneys, thyroid, heart, adipose tissue, small intestine, and testicles. Endothelial cells
have also been the site for SARS-CoV-2. Chinese people were the first to be reported
with the polymorphism detection for the ACE2 gene. Different variants of the ACE2
gene that are closely linked with hypertension were rs464155, rs4240157, and
rs4830542. There has been a close association between ACE2 and TMRSS2 and
SARS-COV-2, SARS-CoV-1, and influenza virus. The inducibility of heme
oxygenase-1 (HO-1) enzyme to reactive oxygen species is regulated by the GT
dinucleotide repeat mutation and polymorphism of the HO-1 gene.
Keywords: SARS, Coronavirus, ACE2, Mutation, Virus, Genome.
