Strain wars 4 - Darwinian evolution through Gibbs' glasses: Gibbs energies of binding and growth explain evolution of SARS-CoV-2 from Hu-1 to BA.2

Abstract

All processes in nature are driven by negative Gibbs energy. Gibbs energy is used by various viruses and their strains to hijack host cell metabolic machinery. The analysis was made by using the atom counting method to obtain elemental compositions and Gibbs energy of growth of the BA.2 strain of SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, Gibbs energy of binding was determined for the BA.2 strain. The properties of BA.2 were compared to those of Hu-1, Delta and Omicron strains. It is concluded that SARS-CoV-2 has evolved by making its Gibbs energy of binding more negative. Hence, it seems that the change in Gibbs energy of binding plays the major role in SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Therefore, Gibbs energy difference between various strains represents the possible mechanism of Darwinian evolution of viruses. In particular, a virus evolves through mutations, resulting in change in information content, elemental composition, increase in infectivity and decrease in pathogenicity.

Keywords: Binding affinity; Driving force; Empirical formula; Enthalpy; Entropy; Evolution.