TY  - JOUR
A1  - Prada, Juan Pablo
A1  - Maag, Luca Estelle
A1  - Siegmund, Laura
A1  - Bencurova, Elena
A1  - Liang, Chunguang
A1  - Koutsilieri, Eleni
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
A1  - Scheller, Carsten
T1  - Estimation of R0 for the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany from excess mortality
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - For SARS-CoV-2, R0 calculations in the range of 2–3 dominate the literature, but much higher estimates have also been published. Because capacity for RT-PCR testing increased greatly in the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, R0 determinations based on these incidence values are subject to strong bias. We propose to use Covid-19-induced excess mortality to determine R0 regardless of RT-PCR testing capacity. We used data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) on the incidence of Covid cases, Covid-related deaths, number of RT-PCR tests performed, and excess mortality calculated from data from the Federal Statistical Office in Germany. We determined R0 using exponential growth estimates with a serial interval of 4.7 days. We used only datasets that were not yet under the influence of policy measures (e.g., lockdowns or school closures). The uncorrected R0 value for the spread of SARS-CoV-2 based on RT-PCR incidence data was 2.56 (95% CI 2.52–2.60) for Covid-19 cases and 2.03 (95% CI 1.96–2.10) for Covid-19-related deaths. However, because the number of RT-PCR tests increased by a growth factor of 1.381 during the same period, these R0 values must be corrected accordingly (R0corrected = R0uncorrected/1.381), yielding 1.86 for Covid-19 cases and 1.47 for Covid-19 deaths. The R0 value based on excess deaths was calculated to be 1.34 (95% CI 1.32–1.37). A sine-function-based adjustment for seasonal effects of 40% corresponds to a maximum value of R0January = 1.68 and a minimum value of R0July = 1.01. Our calculations show an R0 that is much lower than previously thought. This relatively low range of R0 fits very well with the observed seasonal pattern of infection across Europe in 2020 and 2021, including the emergence of more contagious escape variants such as delta or omicron. In general, our study shows that excess mortality can be used as a reliable surrogate to determine the R0 in pandemic situations.
KW  - SARS-CoV-2
KW  - R0
KW  - mortality
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-301415
VL  - 12
IS  - 1
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gupta, Shishir K.
A1  - Srivastava, Mugdha
A1  - Osmanoglu, Oezge
A1  - Dandekar, Thomas
T1  - Genome-wide inference of the Camponotus floridanus protein-protein interaction network using homologous mapping and interacting domain profile pairs
JF  - Scientific Reports
N2  - Apart from some model organisms, the interactome of most organisms is largely unidentified. High-throughput experimental techniques to determine protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are resource intensive and highly susceptible to noise. Computational methods of PPI determination can accelerate biological discovery by identifying the most promising interacting pairs of proteins and by assessing the reliability of identified PPIs. Here we present a first in-depth study describing a global view of the ant Camponotus floridanus interactome. Although several ant genomes have been sequenced in the last eight years, studies exploring and investigating PPIs in ants are lacking. Our study attempts to fill this gap and the presented interactome will also serve as a template for determining PPIs in other ants in future. Our C. floridanus interactome covers 51,866 non-redundant PPIs among 6,274 proteins, including 20,544 interactions supported by domain-domain interactions (DDIs), 13,640 interactions supported by DDIs and subcellular localization, and 10,834 high confidence interactions mediated by 3,289 proteins. These interactions involve and cover 30.6% of the entire C. floridanus proteome.
KW  - interaction map
KW  - drosophila
KW  - identification
KW  - evolutionary
KW  - reliability
KW  - annotation
KW  - database
KW  - target
KW  - cycle
Y1  - 2020
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-229406
VL  - 10
IS  - 1
ER  -