Year-long COVID-19 infection reveals within-host evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in a patient with B cell depletion.

ABSTRACT: B-cell depleting therapies may lead to protracted disease and prolonged viral shedding in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2. Viral persistence in the setting of immunosuppression raises concern for viral evolution. Amplification of sub-genomic transcripts for the E gene (sgE) was done on nasopharyngeal samples over the course of 355 days in a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2 who had previously undergone CAR T cell therapy and had persistently positive SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal swabs. Whole genome sequencing was performed on samples from the patient's original presentation and 10 months later. Over the course of almost a year, the virus accumulated a unique in-frame deletion in the amino-terminal domain of the spike protein, and complete deletion of ORF7b and ORF8, the first report of it

SUBMITTER: Nussenblatt V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8509089 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature