Structural impact of synonymous mutations in six SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern.

ABSTRACT: SARS-CoV-2 continues to spread and infect people worldwide. While most effort into characterizing variants of this virus have focused on non-synonymous changes, accumulation of synonymous mutations in different viral variants has also occurred. Here we characterize six Variants of Concern in terms of their mutational content, and make predictions regarding the impact of those mutations on potential genomic RNA secondary structure and stability. Our hypothesis is that if non-protein changing, yet RNA structure-changing mutations impact viral fitness by imposing deleterious change to predicted RNA structure, we would expect to those mutations to be less abundant, while if those synonymous mutations do not impact viral fitness through influence of RNA structure, we would see them more frequen

SUBMITTER: Ziesel A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12212874 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature