1. High-Density Amplicon Sequencing Identifies Community Spread and Ongoing Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the Southern United States.
- Author
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McNamara RP, Caro-Vegas C, Landis JT, Moorad R, Pluta LJ, Eason AB, Thompson C, Bailey A, Villamor FCS, Lange PT, Wong JP, Seltzer T, Seltzer J, Zhou Y, Vahrson W, Juarez A, Meyo JO, Calabre T, Broussard G, Rivera-Soto R, Chappell DL, Baric RS, Damania B, Miller MB, and Dittmer DP
- Subjects
- COVID-19, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Humans, Pandemics, Phylogeny, SARS-CoV-2, United States, Betacoronavirus genetics, Coronavirus Infections epidemiology, Coronavirus Infections transmission, Pneumonia, Viral epidemiology, Pneumonia, Viral transmission, Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus genetics
- Abstract
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is constantly evolving. Prior studies focused on high-case-density locations, such as the northern and western metropolitan areas of the United States. This study demonstrates continued SARS-CoV-2 evolution in a suburban southern region of the United States by high-density amplicon sequencing of symptomatic cases. 57% of strains carry the spike D614G variant, which is associated with higher genome copy numbers, and its prevalence expands with time. Four strains carry a deletion in a predicted stem loop of the 3' UTR. The data are consistent with community spread within local populations and the larger continental United States. The data instill confidence in current testing sensitivity and validate "testing by sequencing" as an option to uncover cases, particularly nonstandard coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) clinical presentations. This study contributes to the understanding of COVID-19 through an extensive set of genomes from a non-urban setting and informs vaccine design by defining D614G as a dominant and emergent SARS-CoV-2 isolate in the United States., Competing Interests: Declaration of Interests M.B.M. serves on the advisory boards for Curetis, Luminex Molecular Diagnostics, Cepheid, BioFire Diagnostics, and QIAGEN and as a consultant to Shield Diagnostics., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2020
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