Population Dynamics and Structural Effects at Short and Long Range Support the Hypothesis of the Selective Advantage of the G614 SARS-CoV-2 Spike Variant
Abstract SARS-CoV-2 epidemics quickly propagated worldwide, sorting virus genomic variants in newly established propagules of infections. Stochasticity in transmission within and between countries or an actual selective advantage could explain the global high frequency reached by some genomic varian...
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Published in | Molecular biology and evolution Vol. 38; no. 5; pp. 1966 - 1979 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
Oxford University Press
01.05.2021
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Abstract
SARS-CoV-2 epidemics quickly propagated worldwide, sorting virus genomic variants in newly established propagules of infections. Stochasticity in transmission within and between countries or an actual selective advantage could explain the global high frequency reached by some genomic variants. Using statistical analyses, demographic reconstructions, and molecular dynamics simulations, we show that the globally invasive G614 spike variant 1) underwent a significant demographic expansion in most countries explained neither by stochastic effects nor by overrepresentation in clinical samples, 2) increases the spike S1/S2 furin-like site conformational plasticity (short-range effect), and 3) modifies the internal motion of the receptor-binding domain affecting its cross-connection with other functional domains (long-range effect). Our results support the hypothesis of a selective advantage at the basis of the spread of the G614 variant, which we suggest may be due to structural modification of the spike protein at the S1/S2 proteolytic site, and provide structural information to guide the design of variant-specific drugs. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Ilda D’Annessa and Daniele Di Marino authors contributed equally to this work as last authors. Emiliano Trucchi, Paolo Gratton and Fabrizio Mafessoni authors contributed equally to this work as first authors. |
ISSN: | 1537-1719 0737-4038 1537-1719 |
DOI: | 10.1093/molbev/msaa337 |