By combining genome sequence data with phylogenetics and other clues, two teams looked at the SARS-CoV-2 introductions that sparked outbreaks in North America and Europe.
Using sequence data from nearly 2,500 isolates submitted to GISAID before April, researchers tallied coding and non-coding changes in the virus across locations and conditions.
Gene length is associated with lifespan in a comparative genomics study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that draws on the whale shark genome.
With genome sequence alignments and phylogenetic analyses focused on non-recombining regions, researchers traced the SARS-CoV-2 lineage in bats back at least 40 years.
Ancestral alleles "reintroduced" by Neanderthal admixture are prone to functional in the human genome, based on an analysis of East Asian, South Asian, and European sequences.
A comparative genomics and machine-learning analysis spanning almost 1,000 viral genomes pointed to two proteins that appear to be altered in SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV.
