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AuthorAl Khatib, Hebah A
AuthorBenslimane, Fatiha M
AuthorElbashir, Israa E
AuthorCoyle, Peter V
AuthorAl Maslamani, Muna A
AuthorAl-Khal, Abdullatif
AuthorAl Thani, Asmaa A
AuthorYassine, Hadi M
Available date2020-11-09T07:21:54Z
Publication Date2020-10-06
Publication NameFrontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Identifierhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2020.575613
CitationAl Khatib HA, Benslimane FM, Elbashir IE, Coyle PV, Al Maslamani MA, Al-Khal A, Al Thani AA and Yassine HM (2020) Within-Host Diversity of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 Patients With Variable Disease Severities. Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol. 10:575613. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2020.575613
URIhttp://hdl.handle.net/10576/16956
AbstractThe ongoing pandemic of SARS-COV-2 has already infected more than eight million people worldwide. The majority of COVID-19 patients either are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. Yet, about 15% of the cases experience severe complications and require intensive care. Factors determining disease severity are not yet fully characterized. Here, we investigated the within-host virus diversity in COVID-19 patients with different clinical manifestations. We compared SARS-COV-2 genetic diversity in 19 mild and 27 severe cases. Viral RNA was extracted from nasopharyngeal samples and sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform. This was followed by deep-sequencing analyses of SARS-CoV-2 genomes at both consensus and sub-consensus sequence levels. Consensus sequences of all viruses were very similar, showing more than 99.8% sequence identity regardless of the disease severity. However, the sub-consensus analysis revealed significant differences in within-host diversity between mild and severe cases. Patients with severe symptoms exhibited a significantly (-value 0.001) higher number of variants in coding and non-coding regions compared to mild cases. Analysis also revealed higher prevalence of some variants among severe cases. Most importantly, severe cases exhibited significantly higher within-host diversity (mean = 13) compared to mild cases (mean = 6). Further, higher within-host diversity was observed in patients above the age of 60 compared to the younger age group. These observations provided evidence that within-host diversity might play a role in the development of severe disease outcomes in COVID-19 patients; however, further investigations are required to elucidate this association.
SponsorThis work was supported by Qatar University under internal grant (QUCG-BRC-20/21-1) and Qatar National Research Fund grant under grant (RRC-2-039).
Languageen
PublisherFrontiers Media
SubjectCOVID-19 severity
SARS-CoV-2
nonsynonymous mutations
virus quasispecies
within-host diversity
TitleWithin-Host Diversity of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 Patients With Variable Disease Severities.
TypeArticle
Pagination534
Volume Number10
ESSN2235-2988
dc.accessType Open Access


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