The COVID-19 pandemic has already reached more than 110 million people and is associated with 2.5 million deaths worldwide. Brazil is the third worst-hit country, with approximately 10.2 million cases and 250 thousand deaths. International efforts have been established to share information about Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) epidemiology and evolution to support the development of effective strategies for public health and disease management. We aimed to analyze the high-quality genome sequences from Brazil from February 2020-2021 to identify mutation hotspots, geographical and temporal distribution of SARS-CoV-2 lineages by using phylogenetics and phylodynamics analyses. We describe heterogeneous sequencing efforts, the progression of the different lineages along time, evaluating mutational spectra and frequency oscillations derived from the prevalence of specific lineages across different Brazilian regions. We found at least seven major (1–7) and two minor clades related to the six most prevalent lineages in the country and described its spatial distribution and dynamics. The emergence and recent frequency shift of lineages (P.1 and P.2) carrying mutations of concern in the spike protein (e. g., E484K, N501Y) draws attention due to their association with immune evasion and enhanced receptor binding affinity. Improvements in genomic surveillance are of paramount importance and should be extended in Brazil to better inform policy makers about better decisions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, Infectious diseases, Molecular epidemiology, phylogeography, High-throughput nucleotide sequencing, 【초록키워드】 Brazil, public health, Evolution, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, Mutation, Epidemiology, COVID-19 pandemic, Sequencing, progression, improvement, Prevalence, immune evasion, Surveillance, N501Y, P.1, management, Lineage, death, clade, phylogenetics, P.2, E484K, distribution, information, genomic, disease, association, Frequency, Receptor binding, genome sequence, deaths, Support, acute respiratory syndrome, effort, heterogeneous, SARS-CoV-2 lineage, regions, country, Seven, described, identify, the spike protein, reached, analyses, effective strategy, prevalent lineage, 【제목키워드】 Brazil, distribution, hotspot, SARS-CoV-2 lineage, spatiotemporal,