Alkhansa Ahmad, Lakkis Ghayas, El Zein Loubna
Bologna University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Bio-computation Laboratory, Via San Giacomo 9, Bologna 40126, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
Lebanese University, Faculty of Sciences I, Biology Department, Rafic Hariri Campus, P.O. Box: 14 - 6573, Beirut, Lebanon.
Gene Rep. 2021 Jun;23:101024. doi: 10.1016/j.genrep.2021.101024. Epub 2021 Jan 17.
SARS-CoV-2, the causal agent of COVID 19, is a new human pathogen that appeared in Wuhan, late December 2019. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive sense RNA virus, having four structural and six accessory proteins including that encoded by gene known to be one of the most hypervariable and rapidly evolving genes. Thus, global characterization of mutations in this gene is important for pathogenicity and diagnostics. 240 different nonsynonymous mutations and 2 deletions were identified in 45,400 nucleotide sequences during six months pandemic with about half of these variants were deleterious for ORF8, and the quarter of them were located in conserved amino acids. Genetic diversity analysis showed two main regions that harbor L84S and S24L. L84S is by far the most predominant mutation, followed by S24L that appeared first in USA. Phylogenetic analysis of ORF8 variants revealed the appearance of small clades with that of L84S being closer to bats. This is the first study that revealed the global nonsynonymous mutations in ORF8 from January to June 2020.
严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）是2019年12月下旬出现在武汉的一种新型人类病原体，也是新冠病毒病（COVID-19）的病原体。SARS-CoV-2是一种正链RNA病毒，有四种结构蛋白和六种辅助蛋白，其中一种由已知为最具高变异性且快速进化的基因之一所编码。因此，对该基因中的突变进行全球特征分析对于致病性和诊断具有重要意义。在六个月的疫情期间，从45400个核苷酸序列中鉴定出了240种不同的非同义突变和2种缺失，其中约一半的变异对开放阅读框8（ORF8）有害，四分之一位于保守氨基酸中。遗传多样性分析显示有两个主要区域含有L84S和S24L。L84S是迄今为止最主要的突变，其次是最早出现在美国的S24L。对ORF8变异体的系统发育分析揭示了一些小分支的出现，其中L84S与蝙蝠的关系更为密切。这是第一项揭示2020年1月至6月ORF8全球非同义突变的研究。
