Functional Characterization of Adaptive Mutations during the West African Ebola Virus Outbreak.

ABSTRACT: The Ebola virus (EBOV) outbreak in West Africa started in December 2013, claimed more than 11,000 lives, threatened to destabilize a whole region, and showed how easily health crises can turn into humanitarian disasters. EBOV genomic sequences of the West African outbreak revealed nonsynonymous mutations, which induced considerable public attention, but their role in virus spread and disease remains obscure. In this study, we investigated the functional significance of three nonsynonymous mutations that emerged early during the West African EBOV outbreak. Almost 90% of more than 1,000 EBOV genomes sequenced during the outbreak carried the signature of three mutations: a D759G substitution in the active center of the L polymerase, an A82V substitution in the receptor binding domain of surfa

SUBMITTER: Dietzel E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5215343 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature