The global population of SARS-CoV-2 is composed of six major subtypes.
Sci Rep
; 10(1): 18289, 2020 10 26.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-892042
Preprint
This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
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This scientific journal article is probably based on a previously available preprint. It has been identified through a machine matching algorithm, human confirmation is still pending.
See preprint
ABSTRACT
The World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, the second pandemic of the twenty-first century. Expanding virus populations, such as that of SARS-CoV-2, accumulate a number of narrowly shared polymorphisms, imposing a confounding effect on traditional clustering methods. In this context, approaches that reduce the complexity of the sequence space occupied by the SARS-CoV-2 population are necessary for robust clustering. Here, we propose subdividing the global SARS-CoV-2 population into six well-defined subtypes and 10 poorly represented genotypes named tentative subtypes by focusing on the widely shared polymorphisms in nonstructural (nsp3, nsp4, nsp6, nsp12, nsp13 and nsp14) cistrons and structural (spike and nucleocapsid) and accessory (ORF8) genes. The six subtypes and the additional genotypes showed amino acid replacements that might have phenotypic implications. Notably, three mutations (one of them in the Spike protein) were responsible for the geographical segregation of subtypes. We hypothesize that the virus subtypes detected in this study are records of the early stages of SARS-CoV-2 diversification that were randomly sampled to compose the virus populations around the world. The genetic structure determined for the SARS-CoV-2 population provides substantial guidelines for maximizing the effectiveness of trials for testing candidate vaccines or drugs.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Polymorphism, Genetic
/
Betacoronavirus
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Vaccines
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Sci Rep
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41598-020-74050-8
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