Journal article
SARS-CoV-2 within-host diversity and transmission
- Abstract:
- Extensive global sampling and sequencing of the pandemic virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (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 United Kingdom. SARS-CoV-2 infections are characterized by low levels of within-host diversity when viral loads are high and by 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 that are readily observable on the phylogenetic tree. Our results suggest that transmission-enhancing and/or immune-escape SARS-CoV-2 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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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 2.8MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 1.6MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1126/science.abg0821
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Journal:
- Science More from this journal
- Volume:
- 372
- Issue:
- 6539
- Article number:
- eabg0821
- Place of publication:
- United States
- Publication date:
- 2021-03-09
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-03-03
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1095-9203
- ISSN:
-
0036-8075
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1167634
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1167634
- Deposit date:
-
2021-03-24
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Lythgoe et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 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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