Emerging SARS-CoV-2 mutation hot spots include a novel RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase variant

摘要

SARS-CoV-2 mutation frequency in different geographic areas. Eight novel recurrent hotspots mutations (namely 1397, 2891, 14408, 17746, 17857, 18060, 23403 and 28881) and 5 hotspots already reported in literature (namely 3036, 8782, 11083, 28144 and 26143) were subdivided into 4 geographic areas: Asia (n = 71), Oceania (n = 15), Europe (n = 101), North America (n = 33). The mutation frequency was estimated for each of them, by normalizing the number of genomes carrying a given mutation in a geographic area, by the overall number of retrieved genomes per geographic area; the graph shows the cumulative mutation frequency of all given mutations present in each geographic area. Mutation locations in viral genes are reported in the legend as well as the proteins (i.e. non-structural protein, nsp) presenting these mutations. The figure shows that genomes from European and North American patients present an increase in mutation frequency compared to Asia. It is also possible to observe that Europe and North America show a differential pattern of mutations: mutation 14408 (red), 23403 (black), 28881 (electric blue) and 26143 (light green) are present mostly in Europe, whereas 18060 (pink), 17857 (purple) and 17746 (light blue) are present mostly in North America