Monkeypox virus genomics update
Trevor Bedford (@trvrb)
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center / Howard Hughes Medical Institute
21 Jun 2022
Viruses and Vaccines Seminar Series
Brotman Baty Institute
Slides at: bedford.io/talks
Monkeypox virus genome
Generally expect DNA viruses to have much slower evolutionary rate of roughly 1 mutation per year compared to RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 which mutate once every 2 weeks
Monkeypox viral diversity and typical epidemiology
Previously we observed stuttering transmission chains in humans after spillover from reservoir, similar to viruses like MERS-CoV and Nipa
Outbreak viruses are closely related as descendants of clade 3
Outbreak viruses differ by 47 SNPs compared to 2018
Observe ~1 mutation per month instead of the DNA virus expectation of 1 mutation per year
Unusual mutation spectrum consistent with APOBEC editing
Mutations consistent with APOBEC editing begin in 2018 and continue through current outbreak
Conclude human-to-human transmission has been occuring since late 2017
Acknowledgements
MPXV genomic epi: Data producers from all over the world and the Nextstrain team
Bedford Lab:
John Huddleston,
James Hadfield,
Katie Kistler,
Louise Moncla,
Maya Lewinsohn,
Thomas Sibley,
Jover Lee,
Cassia Wagner,
Miguel Paredes,
Nicola Müller,
Marlin Figgins,
Denisse Sequeira,
Victor Lin,
Jennifer Chang
