Abstract
Identifying recombinant sequences in an era of large genomic databases is challenging as it requires an efficient algorithm to identify candidate recombinants and parents, as well as ...appropriate statistical methods to correct for the large number of comparisons performed. In 2007, a computation was introduced for an exact nonparametric mosaicism statistic that gave high-precision P values for putative recombinants. This exact computation meant that multiple-comparisons corrected P values also had high precision, which is crucial when performing millions or billions of tests in large databases. Here, we introduce an improvement to the algorithmic complexity of this computation from O(mn3) to O(mn2), where m and n are the numbers of recombination-informative sites in the candidate recombinant. This new computation allows for recombination analysis to be performed in alignments with thousands of polymorphic sites. Benchmark runs are presented on viral genome sequence alignments, new features are introduced, and applications outside recombination analysis are discussed.
Virus host shifts are generally associated with novel adaptations to exploit the cells of the new host species optimally. Surprisingly, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ...has apparently required little to no significant adaptation to humans since the start of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and to October 2020. Here we assess the types of natural selection taking place in Sarbecoviruses in horseshoe bats versus the early SARS-CoV-2 evolution in humans. While there is moderate evidence of diversifying positive selection in SARS-CoV-2 in humans, it is limited to the early phase of the pandemic, and purifying selection is much weaker in SARS-CoV-2 than in related bat Sarbecoviruses. In contrast, our analysis detects evidence for significant positive episodic diversifying selection acting at the base of the bat virus lineage SARS-CoV-2 emerged from, accompanied by an adaptive depletion in CpG composition presumed to be linked to the action of antiviral mechanisms in these ancestral bat hosts. The closest bat virus to SARS-CoV-2, RmYN02 (sharing an ancestor about 1976), is a recombinant with a structure that includes differential CpG content in Spike; clear evidence of coinfection and evolution in bats without involvement of other species. While an undiscovered "facilitating" intermediate species cannot be discounted, collectively, our results support the progenitor of SARS-CoV-2 being capable of efficient human-human transmission as a consequence of its adaptive evolutionary history in bats, not humans, which created a relatively generalist virus.
Since the first reports of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronavirus in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, there has been intense interest in understanding how severe acute ...respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in the human population. Recent debate has coalesced around two competing ideas: a “laboratory escape” scenario and zoonotic emergence. Here, we critically review the current scientific evidence that may help clarify the origin of SARS-CoV-2.
A review of the current literature supports a zoonotic origin for SARS-CoV-2 and emphasizes the need to focus on identifying the exact animal host through collaborative and carefully coordinated studies. This will enable the community to understand the roots of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as better prepare us for future pandemics
There are outstanding evolutionary questions on the recent emergence of human coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 including the role of reservoir species, the role of recombination and its time of divergence from ...animal viruses. We find that the sarbecoviruses-the viral subgenus containing SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2-undergo frequent recombination and exhibit spatially structured genetic diversity on a regional scale in China. SARS-CoV-2 itself is not a recombinant of any sarbecoviruses detected to date, and its receptor-binding motif, important for specificity to human ACE2 receptors, appears to be an ancestral trait shared with bat viruses and not one acquired recently via recombination. To employ phylogenetic dating methods, recombinant regions of a 68-genome sarbecovirus alignment were removed with three independent methods. Bayesian evolutionary rate and divergence date estimates were shown to be consistent for these three approaches and for two different prior specifications of evolutionary rates based on HCoV-OC43 and MERS-CoV. Divergence dates between SARS-CoV-2 and the bat sarbecovirus reservoir were estimated as 1948 (95% highest posterior density (HPD): 1879-1999), 1969 (95% HPD: 1930-2000) and 1982 (95% HPD: 1948-2009), indicating that the lineage giving rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating unnoticed in bats for decades.
The recent emergence of dengue viruses into new susceptible human populations throughout Asia and the Middle East, driven in part by human travel on both local and global scales, represents a ...significant global health risk, particularly in areas with changing climatic suitability for the mosquito vector. In Pakistan, dengue has been endemic for decades in the southern port city of Karachi, but large epidemics in the northeast have emerged only since 2011. Pakistan is therefore representative of many countries on the verge of countrywide endemic dengue transmission, where prevention, surveillance, and preparedness are key priorities in previously dengue-free regions. We analyze spatially explicit dengue case data from a large outbreak in Pakistan in 2013 and compare the dynamics of the epidemic to an epidemiological model of dengue virus transmission based on climate and mobility data from ∼40 million mobile phone subscribers. We find that mobile phone-based mobility estimates predict the geographic spread and timing of epidemics in both recently epidemic and emerging locations. We combine transmission suitability maps with estimates of seasonal dengue virus importation to generate fine-scale dynamic risk maps with direct application to dengue containment and epidemic preparedness.
Abstract The relationship between influenza antigenic drift and vaccination lies at the intersection of evolutionary biology and public health, and it must be viewed and analyzed in both contexts ...simultaneously. In this paper, I review what is known about the effects of antigenic drift on vaccination and the effects of vaccination on antigenic drift, and I suggest some simple ways to detect the presence of antigenic drift in seasonal influenza data. If antigenic drift occurs on the time scale of a single influenza season, it may be associated with the presence of herd immunity at the beginning of the season and may indicate a need to monitor for vaccine updates at the end of the season. The relationship between antigenic drift and vaccination must also be viewed in the context of the global circulation of influenza strains and the seeding of local and regional epidemics. In the data sets I consider – from New Zealand, New York, and France – antigenic drift can be statistically detected during some seasons, and seeding of epidemics appears to be endogenous sometimes and exogenous at other times. Improved detection of short-term antigenic drift and epidemic seeding would significantly benefit influenza monitoring efforts and vaccine selection.
Statistical tests for detecting mosaic structure or recombination among nucleotide sequences usually rely on identifying a pattern or a signal that would be unlikely to appear under clonal ...reproduction. Dozens of such tests have been described, but many are hampered by long running times, confounding of selection and recombination, and/or inability to isolate the mosaic-producing event. We introduce a test that is exact, nonparametric, rapidly computable, free of the infinite-sites assumption, able to distinguish between recombination and variation in mutation/fixation rates, and able to identify the breakpoints and sequences involved in the mosaic-producing event. Our test considers three sequences at a time: two parent sequences that may have recombined, with one or two breakpoints, to form the third sequence (the child sequence). Excess similarity of the child sequence to a candidate recombinant of the parents is a sign of recombination; we take the maximum value of this excess similarity as our test statistic Delta(m,n,b). We present a method for rapidly calculating the distribution of Delta(m,n,b) and demonstrate that it has comparable power to and a much improved running time over previous methods, especially in detecting recombination in large data sets.
Maciej F. Boni and colleagues propose deploying multiple first-line combination therapies against malaria within a community to delay drug-resistance evolution.
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