Application of MCMC-Based Bayesian Modeling for Genetic Evolutionary and Dynamic Change Analysis of Zika Virus

Zika virus was first discovered in 1947. For a long time afterward, no large-scale outbreaks occurred. However, more recently, in 2007 and 2016, there were two episodes of ZIKV outbreak that have produced serious public health problems. By analyzing the evolution of the viral genome, we can understand the potential for its outbreak. In this study, we constructed a maximum clade credibility (MCC) tree for the ZIKV non-structural protein 5 (NS5) gene using the Bayesian method. A total of 108 whole-NS5 sequences were retrieved from the GeneBank. We carried out an analysis of potential glycosylation and phosphorylation sites of the ZIKV virus NS5 gene and dynamic analysis of the evolutionary characteristics of the gene. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the presence of two sequence lineages: African and Asian. The sequence of the strains obtained from GeneBank has high homology of 85% to 100%. There are 35 potential phosphorylation sites and glycosylation sites in the ZIKV-NS5 sequences. This article analyzes the possible causes of ZIKV virus outbreaks from the perspective of genetic evolution and analyzes the dynamic trends of virus outbreaks to provide a theoretical basis for predicting the outbreak of the virus.