Mutational cascade of SARS-CoV-2 leading to evolution and emergence of omicron variant

Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved..

BACKGROUND: Emergence of new variant of SARS-CoV-2, namely omicron, has posed a global concern because of its high rate of transmissibility and mutations in its genome. Researchers worldwide are trying to understand the evolution and emergence of such variants to understand the mutational cascade events.

METHODS: We have considered all omicron genomes (n = 302 genomes) available till 2nd December 2021 in the public repository of GISAID along with representatives of variants of concern (VOC), i.e., alpha, beta, gamma, delta, and omicron; variant of interest (VOI) mu and lambda; and variant under monitoring (VUM). Whole genome-based phylogeny and mutational analysis were performed to understand the evolution of SARS CoV-2 leading to emergence of omicron variant.

RESULTS: Whole genome-based phylogeny depicted two phylogroups (PG-I and PG-II) forming variant specific clades except for gamma and VUM GH. Mutational analysis detected 18,261 mutations in the omicron variant, majority of which were non-synonymous mutations in spike (A67, T547K, D614G, H655Y, N679K, P681H, D796Y, N856K, Q954H), followed by RNA dependent RNA polymerase (rdrp) (A1892T, I189V, P314L, K38R, T492I, V57V), ORF6 (M19M) and nucleocapsid protein (RG203KR).

CONCLUSION: Delta and omicron have evolutionary diverged into distinct phylogroups and do not share a common ancestry. While, omicron shares common ancestry with VOI lambda and its evolution is mainly derived by the non-synonymous mutations.

Medienart:

E-Artikel

Erscheinungsjahr:

2022

Erschienen:

2022

Enthalten in:

Zur Gesamtaufnahme - volume:315

Enthalten in:

Virus research - 315(2022) vom: 02. Juli, Seite 198765

Sprache:

Englisch

Beteiligte Personen:

Bansal, Kanika [VerfasserIn]
Kumar, Sanjeet [VerfasserIn]

Links:

Volltext

Themen:

Journal Article
NSP, non-structural protein
Rdrp, RNA dependent RNA polymerase
SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, genome-wide, evolution, variants, VOC, VOI, VUM, SNP, mutation, non-synonymous, silent mutation, spike, RNA dependent RNA polymerase, NSP, UTR: Abbreviations: VOC, variant of concern
Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus
Spike protein, SARS-CoV-2
UTR, untranslated region
VOI, variant of interest
VUM, variant under monitoring

Anmerkungen:

Date Completed 17.05.2022

Date Revised 17.12.2022

published: Print-Electronic

Citation Status MEDLINE

doi:

10.1016/j.virusres.2022.198765

funding:

Förderinstitution / Projekttitel:

PPN (Katalog-ID):

NLM338971726