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A new interesting article has been published in Pathogens. 2020 Mar 23; 9(3). pii: E240. doi: 10.3390/pathogens9030240. and titled:

Evolutionary Trajectory for the Emergence of Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

Authors of this article are:

Rehman SU, Shafique L, Ihsan A, Liu Q.

A summary of the article is shown below:

Over the last two decades, the world experienced three outbreaks of coronaviruses with elevated morbidity rates. Currently, the global community is facing emerging virus SARS-CoV-2 belonging to Betacoronavirus, which appears to be more transmissible but less deadly than SARS-CoV. The current study aimed to track the evolutionary ancestors and different evolutionary strategies that were genetically adapted by SARS-CoV-2. Our whole-genome analysis revealed that SARS-CoV-2 was the descendant of Bat SARS/SARS-like CoVs and bats served as a natural reservoir. SARS-CoV-2 used mutations and recombination as crucial strategies in different genomic regions including the envelop, membrane, nucleocapsid, and spike glycoproteins to become a novel infectious agent. We confirmed that mutations in different genomic regions of SARS-CoV-2 have specific influence on virus reproductive adaptability, allowing for genotype adjustment and adaptations in rapidly changing environments. Moreover, for the first time we identified nine putative recombination patterns in SARS-CoV-2, which encompass spike glycoprotein, RdRp, helicase and ORF3a. Six recombination regions were spotted in the S gene and are undoubtedly important for evolutionary survival, meanwhile this permitted the virus to modify superficial antigenicity to find a way from immune reconnaissance in animals and adapt to a human host. With these combined natural selected strategies, SARS-CoV-2 emerged as a novel virus in human society.

Check out the article’s website on Pubmed for more information:

[link-preview url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32210130 forceshot=true]

This article is a good source of information and a good way to become familiar with topics such as: SARS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2; evolutionary strategies; genomic structure; mutations; phylogeny; recombination or reassortment.

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