Global efforts are being made to monitor the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, aiming for early identification of genotypes providing increased infectivity or virulence. However, viral lineage-focused tracking might fail in early detection of advantageous mutations emerging independently across phylogenies. Here, the emergence patterns of Spike mutations were investigated in sequences deposited in local and global databases to identify mutational hotspots across phylogenies and we evaluated their impact on SARS-CoV-2 evolution. We found a striking increase in the frequency of recruitment of diverse substitutions at a critical residue (W152), positioned in the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the Spike protein, observed repeatedly across independent phylogenetic and geographical contexts. These mutations might have an impact on the evasion of neutralizing antibodies. Finally, we found that NTD is a region exhibiting particularly high frequency of mutation recruitments, suggesting an evolutionary path in which the virus maintains optimal efficiency of ACE2 binding combined with the flexibility facilitating the immune escape. We conclude that adaptive mutations, frequently present outside of the receptor-binding domain, can emerge in virtually any SARS-CoV-2 lineage and at any geographical location. Therefore, surveillance should not be restricted to monitoring defined lineages alone.
【저자키워드】 neutralizing antibody, coronavirus, Immune escape, SARS-CoV-2 genome, spike NTD, W152, viral evolution, 【초록키워드】 Mutation, adaptive, Neutralizing antibodies, spike, mutations, Local, virus, database, Spike protein, Protein, Viral, Receptor-binding domain, Surveillance, Immune escape, Phylogeny, Early detection, Genotype, Lineage, Evolution of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-2 evolution, NTD, spike mutations, recruitment, genotypes, virulence, Critical, flexibility, N-terminal domain, Frequency, ACE2 binding, Mutational hotspots, Efficiency, Phylogenetic, sequences, residue, sequence, geographical location, effort, Substitution, phylogenies, global efforts, MONITOR, SARS-CoV-2 lineage, independent, defined, identify, investigated, evaluated, the receptor-binding domain, increase in, maintain, exhibiting, the Spike, mutational hotspot, positioned, 【제목키워드】 spike, escape, Potential, the SARS-CoV-2,