Version 1
: Received: 3 July 2020 / Approved: 5 July 2020 / Online: 5 July 2020 (06:54:01 CEST)
Version 2
: Received: 29 October 2020 / Approved: 30 October 2020 / Online: 30 October 2020 (10:10:58 CET)
Martina Bianchi, Alessandra Borsetti, Massimo Ciccozzi, Stefano Pascarella,
SARS-Cov-2 ORF3a: Mutability and function,
International Journal of Biological Macromolecules,
Volume 170,
2021,
Pages 820-826,
ISSN 0141-8130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.12.142.
Martina Bianchi, Alessandra Borsetti, Massimo Ciccozzi, Stefano Pascarella,
SARS-Cov-2 ORF3a: Mutability and function,
International Journal of Biological Macromolecules,
Volume 170,
2021,
Pages 820-826,
ISSN 0141-8130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.12.142.
Martina Bianchi, Alessandra Borsetti, Massimo Ciccozzi, Stefano Pascarella,
SARS-Cov-2 ORF3a: Mutability and function,
International Journal of Biological Macromolecules,
Volume 170,
2021,
Pages 820-826,
ISSN 0141-8130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.12.142.
Martina Bianchi, Alessandra Borsetti, Massimo Ciccozzi, Stefano Pascarella,
SARS-Cov-2 ORF3a: Mutability and function,
International Journal of Biological Macromolecules,
Volume 170,
2021,
Pages 820-826,
ISSN 0141-8130,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.12.142.
Abstract
The Sars-CoV-2 is the causative agent of the current coronavirus disease pandemic. To effectively fight this pathogen, it is important to understand its evolution and the mechanism of adaptation to the host. A software workflow has been utilized to scan 26,016 Sars-CoV-2 genomes available in GISAID databank to analyse the distribution and frequency of mutations in the corresponding proteomes. A filtering procedure has been applied to remove data inconsistencies and redundancies. The number of observed mutations appears proportional to protein sequence length except for ORF3a, Nucleocapsid and Nsp2 that seem to accept more mutations than expected. The most pervasive mutations of the three proteins have been reported and the most variable and conservative regions mapped onto the respective sequences. The results suggest that these proteins may have a role in the adaptation of virus to new hosts and influence its pathogenicity and replication. These considerations prompt the experimental study and characterization of the three proteins.
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
