Journal article
SARS-CoV-2 within-host diversity and transmission
- Abstract:
- Extensive global sampling and sequencing of the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 have enabled researchers to monitor its spread, and to identify concerning new variants. Two important determinants of variant spread are how frequently they arise within individuals, and how likely they are to be transmitted. To characterize within-host diversity and transmission we deep-sequenced 1313 clinical samples from the UK. SARS-CoV-2 infections are characterized by low levels of within-host diversity when viral loads are high, and a narrow bottleneck at transmission. Most variants are either lost, or occasionally fixed, at the point of transmission, with minimal persistence of shared diversity - patterns which are readily observable on the phylogenetic tree. Our results suggest that transmission-enhancing and/or immune-escape variants are likely to arise infrequently, but could spread rapidly if successfully transmitted.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, 1.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1126/science.abg0821
Authors
Contributors
+ Oxford Virus Sequencing Analysis Group (OVSG)
- Role:
- Contributor
+ The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium
- Role:
- Contributor
- Publisher:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Journal:
- Science More from this journal
- Volume:
- 372
- Issue:
- 6539
- Article number:
- eabg0821
- Publication date:
- 2020-03-09
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-03-03
- DOI:
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1109001
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1109001
- Deposit date:
-
2021-04-10
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Lythgoe, KA et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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