| dc.description.abstract | Background: Recently, differences in mortality rates of COVID-19 in different geographic
areas have become an important subject of research because these different mortality
rates appear to be associated with mutations that appeared in SARS-CoV-2. The part of the
viral body called the spike protein plays a critical role in the viral attachment and entry of
the virus into the host cell. Accordingly, we hypothesized that mutations in this area will
affect viral infectivity.
Methods: A total of 193 sequences of spike SARS-CoV-2 were randomly retrieved from five
different geographic areas and collection dates (from December 2019 until July 2020).
Multiple sequence alignment for mutation and phylogenetic analyses was conducted using
Bioedit, UniProt, and MEGA X.
Results: We found 169 total mutations with 37 different mutations across the included
samples. The D614G is the first and most frequently established mutation in different regions including Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Australia with the number of mutations
of 49, 33, 17, 16 and 4, respectively. Furthermore, we also found mutations in several
important domains in this virus including NTD and CTR/RBD of S1 subunit and at S2
subunit area, namely the peptide fusion (FP), and both heptad repetition (HR1 and 2) domains that suggested this could influence virus binding and virus-host cell membrane
fusion.
Conclusion: In summary, we concluded that mutation had generated diversity of spike
SARS-CoV-2 sequences worldwide and is still growing. This analysis may provide important evidence that should be considered in vaccine development in different geographic
areas. | en_US |
