Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

A peculiar evolutionary feature of monkeypox virus

Yicong Dai, Xucong Teng, Difei Hu, Qiushuang Zhang, Jinghong Li
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.18.496696
Yicong Dai
aDepartment of Chemistry, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Xucong Teng
aDepartment of Chemistry, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Difei Hu
aDepartment of Chemistry, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Qiushuang Zhang
aDepartment of Chemistry, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jinghong Li
aDepartment of Chemistry, Center for BioAnalytical Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: jhli@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

From 1 Jan 2022 to 15 June 2022, more than 2,100 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 42 countries. This unusual outbreak of monkeypox has raised new concerns in academia and the public. To keep abreast of the trend of the monkeypox epidemic, it is extremely urgent and important to surveille the accumulated genomic mutations and the change of the transmission ability of the pathogen, monkeypox virus (MPXV). We report a non-canonical RNA secondary structure, G-quadruplex (RG4), that surprisingly evolved stepwise with various variants. The RG4 motif is located in the coding sequence region of MPXV C9L gene that is functional in inhibiting host innate immune response. The evolution decreases the stability of this RG4 and promotes C9L protein level in living cells. Importantly, all the reported MPXV genomes in 2022 contain the most unstable RG4 variant, which may be the reason of the increasing spread of MPXV. These findings recommend that health authorities and researchers pay attention to the genomic evolution of MPXV.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted June 19, 2022.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
A peculiar evolutionary feature of monkeypox virus
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
A peculiar evolutionary feature of monkeypox virus
Yicong Dai, Xucong Teng, Difei Hu, Qiushuang Zhang, Jinghong Li
bioRxiv 2022.06.18.496696; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.18.496696
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
A peculiar evolutionary feature of monkeypox virus
Yicong Dai, Xucong Teng, Difei Hu, Qiushuang Zhang, Jinghong Li
bioRxiv 2022.06.18.496696; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.06.18.496696

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Genetics
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3586)
  • Biochemistry (7544)
  • Bioengineering (5495)
  • Bioinformatics (20729)
  • Biophysics (10294)
  • Cancer Biology (7950)
  • Cell Biology (11609)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6586)
  • Ecology (10166)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13578)
  • Genetics (9520)
  • Genomics (12817)
  • Immunology (7905)
  • Microbiology (19503)
  • Molecular Biology (7640)
  • Neuroscience (41980)
  • Paleontology (307)
  • Pathology (1254)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2192)
  • Physiology (3259)
  • Plant Biology (7018)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1293)
  • Synthetic Biology (1947)
  • Systems Biology (5418)
  • Zoology (1113)