The researchers say that SARS-CoV-2 is being mutated by human proteins that break it down, although the virus “natural selection” allows it to recover.
Scientists at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and the University of Edinburgh say their research could help in designing vaccines to fight the virus.
In a statement, the researchers note that all organisms mutate, but this is usually a random process as a result of mistakes made when DNA is copied.
“In the case of SARS-CoV-2, the mutation may not be a random process and is being mutated by humans as part of a defense mechanism to degrade the virus,” they explain.
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The research is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
After studying more than 15,000 virus genomes from research projects around the world, the scientists identified 6,000 mutations.
“They looked at how much each of the four letters that make up the virus’ genetic code (A, C, U, and G) were mutating and found that the virus had a very high rate of mutations that generated U residues,” the scientists explained. . Specifically, the mutation commonly generates neighboring UU pairs, which mutate from an original CU and UC sequence.
This, they explained, is the “fingerprint” of the mutational profile of APOBEC (Apolipoprotein B mRNA Editing Catalytic Polipeptide-like), a human protein that can mutate viruses.
“Natural selection, the survival of the fittest, is allowing the virus to fight the mutational process,” the researchers added.
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“I have examined the mutational profiles of many organisms and they all show some kind of bias, but I have never seen one as strong and strange as this,” said lead author Professor Laurence Hurst, director of the Milner Center for Evolution at the University of Bath, in the statement.
The results could have implications for vaccine design.
“Knowing what selection favors and disadvantages in the virus is really helpful in understanding what an attenuated version should look like,” said Hurst. “We suggested, for example, that increasing U content, as APOBEC does within our cells, would be a sensible strategy.”
With 298,731 cases and 45,639 deaths, the UK is one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
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As of Friday morning, more than 15.5 million cases of coronavirus have been diagnosed worldwide, with more than 4 million of them in the US The disease has accounted for more than 634,000 deaths worldwide, including over 144,000 in the US
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