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The Neighborhood of the Spike Gene Is a Hotspot for Modular Intertypic Homologous and Nonhomologous Recombination in Coronavirus Genomes.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Nikolaidis, Marios 
Markoulatos, Panayotis 
Van de Peer, Yves 
Oliver, Stephen G 
Amoutzias, Grigorios D  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5961-964X

Abstract

Coronaviruses (CoVs) have very large RNA viral genomes with a distinct genomic architecture of core and accessory open reading frames (ORFs). It is of utmost importance to understand their patterns and limits of homologous and nonhomologous recombination, because such events may affect the emergence of novel CoV strains, alter their host range, infection rate, tissue tropism pathogenicity, and their ability to escape vaccination programs. Intratypic recombination among closely related CoVs of the same subgenus has often been reported; however, the patterns and limits of genomic exchange between more distantly related CoV lineages (intertypic recombination) need further investigation. Here, we report computational/evolutionary analyses that clearly demonstrate a substantial ability for CoVs of different subgenera to recombine. Furthermore, we show that CoVs can obtain-through nonhomologous recombination-accessory ORFs from core ORFs, exchange accessory ORFs with different CoV genera, with other viruses (i.e., toroviruses, influenza C/D, reoviruses, rotaviruses, astroviruses) and even with hosts. Intriguingly, most of these radical events result from double crossovers surrounding the Spike ORF, thus highlighting both the instability and mobile nature of this genomic region. Although many such events have often occurred during the evolution of various CoVs, the genomic architecture of the relatively young SARS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 lineage so far appears to be stable.

Description

Keywords

bioinformatics, coronavirus, genome evolution, horizontal gene transfer, molecular evolution, recombination, Coronavirus, Genome, Viral, Open Reading Frames, Phylogeny, Recombination, Genetic, Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus

Journal Title

Mol Biol Evol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0737-4038
1537-1719

Volume Title

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)