Eskier Doğa, Karakülah Gökhan, Suner Aslı, Oktay Yavuz
Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center (IBG), Izmir, Turkey.
Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey.
PeerJ. 2020 Jul 21;8:e9587. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9587. eCollection 2020.
COVID-19, caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, started in China in late 2019, and soon became a global pandemic. With the help of thousands of viral genome sequences that have been accumulating, it has become possible to track the evolution of the viral genome over time as it spread across the world. An important question that still needs to be answered is whether any of the common mutations affect the viral properties, and therefore the disease characteristics. Therefore, we sought to understand the effects of mutations in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), particularly the common 14408C>T mutation, on mutation rate and viral spread. By focusing on mutations in the slowly evolving M or E genes, we aimed to minimize the effects of selective pressure. Our results indicate that 14408C>T mutation increases the mutation rate, while the third-most common RdRp mutation, 15324C>T, has the opposite effect. It is possible that 14408C>T mutation may have contributed to the dominance of its co-mutations in Europe and elsewhere.
由新型严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）引起的2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）于2019年末在中国爆发，并迅速演变成一场全球大流行。借助不断积累的数千个病毒基因组序列，追踪病毒基因组在全球传播过程中的随时间演变已成为可能。一个仍有待解答的重要问题是，是否有任何常见突变会影响病毒特性，进而影响疾病特征。因此，我们试图了解RNA依赖性RNA聚合酶（RdRp）中的突变，特别是常见的14408C>T突变，对突变率和病毒传播的影响。通过关注缓慢进化的M或E基因中的突变，我们旨在将选择压力的影响降至最低。我们的结果表明，14408C>T突变会增加突变率，而第三常见的RdRp突变15324C>T则有相反的效果。14408C>T突变可能促成了其共突变在欧洲和其他地区的主导地位。
