Potential transmission chains of variant B.1.1.7 and co-mutations of SARS-CoV-2
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Abstract
The presence of SARS-CoV-2 mutants, including the emerging variant B.1.1.7, has raised great concerns in terms of pathogenesis, transmission, and immune escape. Characterizing SARS-CoV-2 mutations, evolution, and effects on infectivity and pathogenicity is crucial to the design of antibody therapies and surveillance strategies. Here, we analyzed 454,443 SARS-CoV-2 spike genes/proteins and 14,427 whole-genome sequences. We demonstrated that the early variant B.1.1.7 may not have evolved spontaneously in the United Kingdom or within human populations. Our extensive analyses suggested that Canidae, Mustelidae or Felidae, especially the Canidae family (for example, dog) could be a possible host of the direct progenitor of variant B.1.1.7. An alternative hypothesis is that the variant was simply yet to be sampled. Notably, the SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome represents a large number of potential co-mutations. In addition, we used an experimental SARS-CoV-2 reporter replicon system to introduce the dominant co-mutations NSP12_c14408t, 5′UTR_c241t, and NSP3_c3037t into the viral genome, and to monitor the effect of the mutations on viral replication. Our experimental results demonstrated that the co-mutations significantly attenuated the viral replication. The study provides valuable clues for discovering the transmission chains of variant B.1.1.7 and understanding the evolutionary process of SARS-CoV-2.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.16.440141: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources MEGA version and parameter settings: Version: MEGA-X Statistical Method: Maximum Likelihood Test of Phylogeny: None Model/Method: Jones-Taylor-Thornton (JTT) model Rates among Sites: Uniform Rates Gaps/Missing Data Treatment: Use all sites ML Heuristic Method: Nearest-Neighbor-Interchange (NNT) Initial Tree for ML: Make initial tree automatically (Default - NJ/BioNJ) MEGAsuggested: (Mega BLAST, RRID:SCR_011920)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from Limitati…SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.16.440141: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources MEGA version and parameter settings: Version: MEGA-X Statistical Method: Maximum Likelihood Test of Phylogeny: None Model/Method: Jones-Taylor-Thornton (JTT) model Rates among Sites: Uniform Rates Gaps/Missing Data Treatment: Use all sites ML Heuristic Method: Nearest-Neighbor-Interchange (NNT) Initial Tree for ML: Make initial tree automatically (Default - NJ/BioNJ) MEGAsuggested: (Mega BLAST, RRID:SCR_011920)Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
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