The mutational dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in serial passages in vitro.

ABSTRACT: Since its outbreak in 2019, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) keeps surprising the medical community by evolving diverse immune escape mutations in a rapid and effective manner. To gain deeper insight into mutation frequency and dynamics, we isolated ten ancestral strains of SARS-CoV-2 and performed consecutive serial incubation in ten replications in a suitable and common cell line and subsequently analysed them using RT-qPCR and whole genome sequencing. Along those lines we hoped to gain fundamental insights into the evolutionary capacity of SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. Our results identified a series of adaptive genetic changes, ranging from unique convergent substitutional mutations and hitherto undescribed insertions. The region coding for spike proved to be a mutat

SUBMITTER: Sonnleitner ST 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8800542 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature