• Yu-Nong Gong, Kuo-Chien Tsao, Mei-Jen Hsiao, Chung-Guei Huang, Peng-Nien Huang, Po-Wei Huang, Kuo-Ming Lee, Yi-Chun Liu, Shu-Li Yang, Rei-Lin Kuo, Kuan-Fu Chen, Yen-Chin Liu, Sheng-Yu Huang, Hsing-I Huang, Ming-Tsan Liu, Ji-Rong Yang, Cheng-Hsun Chiu, Cheng-Ta Yang, Guang-Wu Chen, and Shin-Ru Shih.
• Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections, College of Medicine, Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
• Emerg Microbes Infect. 2020 Dec 1; 9 (1): 1457-1466.

AbstractTaiwan experienced two waves of imported infections with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed at investigating the genomic variation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Taiwan and compared their evolutionary trajectories with the global strains. We performed culture and full-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 strains followed by phylogenetic analysis. A 382-nucleotides deletion in open reading frame 8 (ORF8) was found in a Taiwanese strain isolated from a patient on February 4, 2020 who had a travel history to Wuhan. Patients in the first wave also included several sporadic, local transmission cases. Genomes of 5 strains sequenced from clustered infections were classified into a new clade with ORF1ab-V378I mutation, in addition to 3 dominant clades ORF8-L84S, ORF3a-G251V and S-D614G. This highlighted clade also included some strains isolated from patients who had a travel history to Turkey and Iran. The second wave mostly resulted from patients who had a travel history to Europe and Americas. All Taiwanese viruses were classified into various clades. Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Taiwan revealed a new ORF8-deletion mutant and a virus clade that may be associated with infections in the Middle East, which contributed to a better understanding of the global SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics.

34 keywords...

hide…