PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Shubham Gaurav
AU  - Shambhavi Pandey
AU  - Apurvasinh Puvar
AU  - Tejas Shah
AU  - Madhvi Joshi
AU  - Chaitanya Joshi
AU  - Sachin Kumar
TI  - Identification of unique mutations in SARS-CoV-2 strains isolated from India suggests its attenuated pathotype
AID  - 10.1101/2020.06.06.137604
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.06.06.137604
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/07/2020.06.06.137604.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/07/2020.06.06.137604.full
AB  - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), which was first reported in Wuhan, China in November 2019 has developed into a pandemic since March 2020, causing substantial human casualties and economic losses. Studies on SARS-CoV-2 are being carried out at an unprecedented rate to tackle this threat. Genomics studies, in particular, are indispensable to elucidate the dynamic nature of the RNA genome of SARS-CoV-2. RNA viruses are marked by their unique ability to undergo high rates of mutation in their genome, much more frequently than their hosts, which diversifies their strengths qualifying them to elude host immune response and amplify drug resistance. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the genomic information of the SARS-CoV-2 isolates from two infected Indian patients and explored the possible implications of point mutations in its biology. In addition to multiple point mutations, we found a remarkable similarity between relatively common mutations of 36-nucleotide deletion in ORF8 of SARS-CoV-2. Our results corroborate with the earlier reported 29-nucleotide deletion in SARS, which was frequent during the early stage of human-to-human transmission. The results will be useful to understand the biology of SARS-CoV-2 and itsattenuation for vaccine development.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.