Noisy Genome Data and Faulty Clade Statistics Undermine Conclusions on SARS-CoV-2 Evolution and Strain Typing in the Brazilian Epidemy: A Technical Note

Marcelo R. S. Briones; Fernando Antoneli; Renata C. Ferreira; Isabel M. V. G. Carvalho; Luiz M. R. Janini

doi:10.20944/preprints202008.0659.v1

Submitted:

27 August 2020

Posted:

30 August 2020

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Technical Note

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Noisy Genome Data and Faulty Clade Statistics Undermine Conclusions on SARS-CoV-2 Evolution and Strain Typing in the Brazilian Epidemy: A Technical Note

Marcelo R. S. Briones^*

,Fernando Antoneli,Renata C. Ferreira,Isabel M. V. G. Carvalho,Luiz M. R. Janini

Marcelo R. S. Briones^*

,Fernando Antoneli,Renata C. Ferreira,Isabel M. V. G. Carvalho,Luiz M. R. Janini

A peer-reviewed article of this preprint also exists.

Submitted:

27 August 2020

Posted:

30 August 2020

You are already at the latest version

Part of the Following Collection

Preprints on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

Abstract

We show that low quality of all 427 Brazilian SARS-CoV-2 genomes recently published in Science (1) challenges their phylogenetic inference and may lead to incorrect typing of viral strains in clades with no statistical support. Absence of basecalling quality in genome assemblies and proper phylogeny parameter estimates preclude the assessment of signal-to-noise ratio in the data, downstream analysis and conclusions.

Keywords:

SARS-CoV-2

;

COVID-19

;

Viral Evolution

Subject:

Biology and Life Sciences - Virology

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