A team of Russian researchers from the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) has discovered the mechanisms behind the emergence of new and dangerous coronavirus variants, such as Alpha, Delta, and Omicron. The team analyzed over three million genome sequences of different strains of SARS-CoV-2, identifying particular concordant sites where amino acid substitutions occurred, differentiating the variants from both the original Wuhan strain and from one another. They found that the likelihood of a substitution occurring at a specific site of the SARS-CoV-2 genome is dependent on concordant substitutions occurring at other sites. This explains why new and more contagious variants of the virus can emerge unexpectedly and differ significantly from those previously circulating. The statistical method employed by the study’s authors is versatile and can be utilized to investigate the evolution of numerous other pathogens. This approach has been successfully applied to studying the evolution of influenza and tuberculosis.
