Gurwinder Kaur

The significant genetic diversity among Group A Streptococcal (GAS) strains isolated from various geographical regions presents serious challenges for treatment and vaccine development strategies

Real-time RT-PCR is used as a gold standard method for the diagnosis of COVID-19. Since real-time RT PCR is nucleic acid-based, it is a highly sensitive and specific test. However, this test takes 4–8 h to generate results and, in emergency settings, this delay may prove fatal for certain patients. The frequent surge in COVID cases increases patient load in emergency settings. Thus, a nucleic acid-based rapid POC test is required that can generate results quickly as well as being comparable to real-time RT-PCR. In this study, comparison of real-time RT-PCR was carried out using the rapid nucleic acid-based LAMP method. Nasopharyngeal swabs were taken in duplicate from patients visiting the kiosk and were analyzed for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus by both real-time RT-PCR and LAMP techniques ID NOW(bbott). Out of 14 positive and 31 negative samples tested by real-time RT-PCR, 13 samples were identified as positive and 31 were observed as negative with the LAMP-based test. Hence, the sensitivity and specificity of this method were found to be 92.9% and 93.5%, respectively. Therefore, LAMP-based point-of-care testing has the potential to be used in hospital emergency settings for quick diagnosis of critically ill patients, and the information generated here will further draw the attention of policymakers toward such nucleic acid-based rapid tests.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an etiological agent of tuberculosis (TB). Tuberculosis is a mounting problem worldwide. The only available vaccine BCG protects the childhood but not adulthood form of TB. Therefore, efforts are made continuously to improve the efficacy of BCG by supplementing it with other therapies. Consequently, we explored the possibility of employing Mycobacterium immunogenum (Mi) to improve BCG potential to protect against Mtb. We report here the genome mining, comparative genomics, immunological and protection studies employing strain CD11_6 of Mi. Mycobacterium immunogenum was isolated from duodenal mucosa of a celiac disease patient. The strain was whole genome sequenced and annotated for identification of virulent genes and other traits that may make it suitable as a potential vaccine candidate. Virulence profile of Mi was mapped and compared with two other reference genomes i.e. virulent Mtb strain H37Rv and vaccine strain Mycobacterium bovis (Mb) AFF2122/97. This comparative analysis revealed that Mi is less virulent, as compared to Mb and Mtb, and contains comparable number of genes encoding for the antigenic proteins that predict it as a probable vaccine candidate. Interestingly, the animals vaccinated with Mi showed significant augmentation in the generation of memory T cells and reduction in the Mtb burden. The study signifies that Mi has a potential to protect against Mtb and therefore can be a future vaccine candidate against TB.