Transmission cluster of COVID-19 cases from Uruguay: emergence and spreading of a novel SARS-CoV-2 ORF6 deletion.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Evolutionary changes in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) include indels in non-structural, structural, and accessory open reading frames (ORFs) or genes.

Objectives

We track indels in accessory ORFs to infer evolutionary gene patterns and epidemiological links between outbreaks.

Methods

Genomes from Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case-patients were Illumina sequenced using ARTIC_V3. The assembled genomes were analysed to detect substitutions and indels.

Findings

We reported the emergence and spread of a unique 4-nucleotide deletion in the accessory ORF6, an interesting gene with immune modulation activity. The deletion in ORF6 removes one repeat unit of a two 4-nucleotide repeat, which shows that directly repeated seq

SUBMITTER: Panzera Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8752050 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature