Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

May 14, 2020

Tracing Two Causative SNPs Reveals SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in North America Population

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  • Based on phylogenetic analysis of 2,599 global SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA sequences, the dominant strains circulating in North America are most closely related to those that predominate in Europe.  
  • A genome wide association study identified two mutations that predominate in North American samples. The authors hypothesize these mutations may be associated with increased transmissibility and that the mutations may have first emerged in Europe. These mutations result in two missense mutations (i.e. a single base pair mutation that causes the substitution of a different amino acid) in the ORF1ab and ORF3a proteins, and may be targets for novel diagnostic and drug technologies. 

Ou et al. (May 14, 2020). Tracing Two Causative SNPs Reveals SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in North America Population. Pre-print downloaded May 14 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.12.092056