SNPs or RNA modifications? Concerns on mutation-based evolutionary studies of SARS-CoV-2.
PLoS One
; 15(8): e0238490, 2020.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1388885
ABSTRACT
SARS-CoV-2 is still rampaging throughout the world while the many evolutionary studies on it are simultaneously springing up. Researchers have simply utilized the public RNA-seq data to find out the so-called SNPs in the virus genome. The evolutionary analyses were largely based on these mutations. Here, we claim that we reliably detected A-to-G RNA modifications in the RNA-seq data of SARS-CoV-2 with high signal to noise ratios, presumably caused by the host's deamination enzymes. Intriguingly, since SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus, it is technically impossible to distinguish SNPs and RNA modifications from the RNA-seq data alone without solid evidence, making it difficult to tell the evolutionary patterns behind the mutation spectrum. Researchers should clarify their biological significance before they automatically regard the mutations as SNPs or RNA modifications. This is not a problem for DNA organisms but should be seriously considered when we are investigating the RNA viruses.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
RNA, Viral
/
Evolution, Molecular
/
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
/
Betacoronavirus
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
PLoS One
Journal subject:
Science
/
Medicine
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
JOURNAL.PONE.0238490
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