Rapid Emergence and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Intrahost Variants among COVID-19 Patients with Prolonged Infections, Singapore.

ABSTRACT: The evolution and spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants have driven successive waves of global COVID-19 outbreaks, yet the longitudinal dynamics of intrahost variation within the same patient remain less clear. We conducted a longitudinal cohort study by deep sequencing 198 swab samples collected from COVID-19 patients with varying infection durations. Our analysis showed that prolonged infections enhanced viral genomic diversity, leading to emergence of co-occurring variants that maintained high (>20%) frequency and became dominant in virus populations. We observed heterogeneous intrahost dynamics among individual patients, 2 of whom exhibited a minor variant of the spike D614G substitution over the course of infection. The increase in intrahost variants strongly correlated with prolonged infecti

SUBMITTER: Su YCF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12309778 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature