Narrow transmission bottlenecks and limited within-host viral diversity during a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak on a fishing boat.

ABSTRACT: The long-term evolution of viruses is ultimately due to viral mutants that arise within infected individuals and transmit to other individuals. Here, we use deep sequencing to investigate the transmission of viral genetic variation among individuals during a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak that infected the vast majority of crew members on a fishing boat. We deep-sequenced nasal swabs to characterize the within-host viral population of infected crew members, using experimental duplicates and strict computational filters to ensure accurate variant calling. We find that within-host viral diversity is low in infected crew members. The mutations that did fix in some crew members during the outbreak are not observed at detectable frequencies in any of the s

SUBMITTER: Hannon WW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9257191 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature