Population Genetics of SARS-CoV-2: Disentangling Effects of Sampling Bias and Infection Clusters.

ABSTRACT: A novel RNA virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is responsible for the ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Population genetic analysis could be useful for investigating the origin and evolutionary dynamics of COVID-19. However, due to extensive sampling bias and existence of infection clusters during the epidemic spread, direct applications of existing approaches can lead to biased parameter estimations and data misinterpretation. In this study, we first present robust estimator for the time to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) and the mutation rate, and then apply the approach to analyze 12,909 genomic sequences of SARS-CoV-2. The mutation rate is inferred to be 8.69 × 10^-4 per site per year with a 95% confidence i

SUBMITTER: Liu Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7354277 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature