Origin of novel coronavirus causing COVID-19: A computational biology study using artificial intelligence

Machine Learning with Applications

Mohamed Abdelrazek¹  Samuel Yang²  Edbert B. Hsu³  Sunil Aryal⁴  Thanh Thi Nguyen⁵  Duc Thanh Nguyen⁵  Thanh Tam Nguyen⁵  Dung Tien Nguyen⁵  Sandeep Reddy⁵  Amin Khatami⁶  Quoc Viet Hung Nguyen⁷ 

[1] Corresponding author.;Department of Emergency Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Maryland, USA;Faculty of Information Technology, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam;Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Victoria, Australia;School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia;School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia;School of Medicine, Deakin University, Victoria, Australia;

关键词: Artificial intelligence;    AI;    Machine learning;    COVID-19;    SARS-coV-2;    Origin;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Origin of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2) has been intensely debated in the scientific community since the first infected cases were detected in December 2019. The disease has caused a global pandemic, leading to deaths of thousands of people across the world and thus finding origin of this novel coronavirus is important in responding and controlling the pandemic. Recent research results suggest that bats or pangolins might be the hosts for SARS-CoV-2 based on comparative studies using its genomic sequences. This paper investigates the SARS-CoV-2 origin by using artificial intelligence (AI)-based unsupervised learning algorithms and raw genomic sequences of the virus. More than 300 genome sequences of COVID-19 infected cases collected from different countries are explored and analysed using unsupervised clustering methods. The results obtained from various AI-enabled experiments using clustering algorithms demonstrate that all examined SARS-CoV-2 genomes belong to a cluster that also contains bat and pangolin coronavirus genomes. This provides evidence strongly supporting scientific hypotheses that bats and pangolins are probable hosts for SARS-CoV-2. At the whole genome analysis level, our findings also indicate that bats are more likely the hosts for the COVID-19 virus than pangolins.

【 授权许可】

Unknown