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Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source

Some of the newly emerging corona viral variants show high numbers of mutations. This is unexpected for a virus with a low mutation rate due to an inherent proof-reading system. Could such a variant arise under very special conditions occurring in a host where the virus replicates and mutates in a r...

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Autor principal: Moelling, Karin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8146792/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33922936
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13050751
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author Moelling, Karin
author_facet Moelling, Karin
author_sort Moelling, Karin
collection PubMed
description Some of the newly emerging corona viral variants show high numbers of mutations. This is unexpected for a virus with a low mutation rate due to an inherent proof-reading system. Could such a variant arise under very special conditions occurring in a host where the virus replicates and mutates in a rather unlimited fashion, such as in immune compromised patients? The virus was shown to replicate in an immunosuppressed cancer patient for more than 105 days and might be a source of new variants. These patients are asymptomatic and the virus may therefore escape detection and attention and be high-risk. Similarly, HIV-infected individuals may be immunocompromised and support coronavirus replication with increased mutation rates. The patients may promote “within-host evolution”. Some of the viruses present in such a highly mutagenic swarm or quasispecies within one patient may become founders and cause a pandemic by further “between-host evolution”. B.1.1.7 with 23 mutations may be such a case. Immunosuppressed patients can be identified and treated by the synthetic antibody cocktails as passive immunization and kept under control. Immunosuppressed patients can be easily identified and supervised by healthcare workers—once they become aware of the risk—to avoid new variants with pandemic potential.
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spelling pubmed-81467922021-05-26 Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source Moelling, Karin Viruses Opinion Some of the newly emerging corona viral variants show high numbers of mutations. This is unexpected for a virus with a low mutation rate due to an inherent proof-reading system. Could such a variant arise under very special conditions occurring in a host where the virus replicates and mutates in a rather unlimited fashion, such as in immune compromised patients? The virus was shown to replicate in an immunosuppressed cancer patient for more than 105 days and might be a source of new variants. These patients are asymptomatic and the virus may therefore escape detection and attention and be high-risk. Similarly, HIV-infected individuals may be immunocompromised and support coronavirus replication with increased mutation rates. The patients may promote “within-host evolution”. Some of the viruses present in such a highly mutagenic swarm or quasispecies within one patient may become founders and cause a pandemic by further “between-host evolution”. B.1.1.7 with 23 mutations may be such a case. Immunosuppressed patients can be identified and treated by the synthetic antibody cocktails as passive immunization and kept under control. Immunosuppressed patients can be easily identified and supervised by healthcare workers—once they become aware of the risk—to avoid new variants with pandemic potential. MDPI 2021-04-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8146792/ /pubmed/33922936 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13050751 Text en © 2021 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Opinion
Moelling, Karin
Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title_full Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title_fullStr Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title_full_unstemmed Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title_short Within-Host and Between-Host Evolution in SARS-CoV-2—New Variant’s Source
title_sort within-host and between-host evolution in sars-cov-2—new variant’s source
topic Opinion
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8146792/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33922936
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/v13050751
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