SARS‑CoV‑2 mutation hotspots incidence in different geographic regions

ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) is RNA virus with a positive-sense single-strand that belongs to the beta-coronavirus group that causes COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) which originally emerged in China. Viruses with RNA genomes are known by a high mutation rate potential. The mutation rate determines genome variability and evolution of the virus; therefore, allowing viruses to evade the immune system, gain more infectivity potentials, virulence modifications, and probably resistance development to antivirals. A total of 311 SARS-CoV-2 virus whole genome sequences have been retrieved from the GISAID database from 1st of January 2020 to 31th of August 2020. The sequences were analyzed for sequence purity and multiple sequence alignment together with reference sequence was conducted through using Clustal Omega that is imbedded in Jalview software and Blast tools. We recorded the occurrence of 4 newly incident high frequently occurring mutations in all six geographic regions, namely at positions 2416, 18877, 23401, and 27964. The majority of all recorded hotspots were detected in Asia, Europe, and North America. The findings of our study suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 is in continuous evolution. For the impact of these mutations, further investigations are required and to understand whether these mutations would lead to the appearance of Drug-resistance viral strains, strains with increased infectivity and pathogenicity, and also their effect on the vaccine development and immunogenesis.