SARS-CoV-2 Quasispecies Provides an Advantage Mutation Pool for the Epidemic Variants.

ABSTRACT: The dynamics of quasispecies afford RNA viruses a great fitness on cell tropism and host range. To study the quasispecies features and the intra-host evolution of SARS-CoV-2, we collected nine confirmed patients and sequenced the haplotypes of spike gene using a single-molecule real-time platform. Fourteen samples were extracted from sputum, nasopharyngeal swabs, or stool, which in total produced 283,655 high-quality circular consensus sequences. We observed a stable quasispecies structure that one master mutant (mean abundance ∼0.70), followed by numerous minor mutants (mean abundance ∼1.21 × 10^-3). Under high selective pressure, minor mutants may obtain a fitness advantage and become the master ones. The later predominant substitution D614G existed in the minor mutants of more

SUBMITTER: Sun F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8552775 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature