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Virus Mutation

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By *oubleswing2019 OP   Man
over a year ago

Colchester

Viruses can mutate, once they are inside a host for various reasons.

As I understand it, Covid being an RNA virus (Like SARS) is more prone to mutation, like all RNA viruses.

What I'd like to know is what is the successful mutation rate where the virus makes an adaption that furthers its chances in the wild, per say 100 people or 1000 people ? Or whatever metric it may have been measured against ?

I'm just trying to get a pragmatic idea of how many potential new variants we could expect to see over the coming year/years.

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By *spotpleasurerMan
over a year ago

Norwich

It's not an answer but you can take a guess from the influenza virus. That is constantly mutating too, but most of the time the changes do not affect immunity. Once in a while you get a major shift and a pandemic. Take a look at the frequency of such outbreaks over the last 100 years and that will give you an idea of what to expect.

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By *ola cubesMan
over a year ago

coatbridge

When you catch a virus it may not be only one.

you can have various strains present but one dominant virus presents it depends how deep they test how many are picked up

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

i read on another thread in here that viruses mutate every 7 instances which made me

i wasn’t sure if that was the virus being passed from host 1 to 7 different people or if it had to pass through 7 hosts (like a daisy chain effect) but either way it was a scarily lower number than i ever expected

im sure it was one of the posters who are up on their micro biology info but i can’t find the post now to share incase i am misinterpreting

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By *hrista BellendWoman
over a year ago

surrounded by twinkly lights

CDC reported that there are 144 different strains of the influenza across the globe in 2019 for a point of interest

Source is the CDC website before anyone moans

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By *spotpleasurerMan
over a year ago

Norwich

All viruses mutate when they replicate. The question is whether the mutations are viable, and if they are, are they then more infectious or better able to cross from one species to another?

The good news for Covid- the sequencing of strains from around the world suggest it mutates more slowly than influenza or HIV for example.

A typical Covid strain only accumulates a mutation of 2 base pairs out of its 30,000 in a month. Any two strains sequenced differ by an average of only 10 base pairs out of those 30,000.

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By *ola cubesMan
over a year ago

coatbridge


"i read on another thread in here that viruses mutate every 7 instances which made me

i wasn’t sure if that was the virus being passed from host 1 to 7 different people or if it had to pass through 7 hosts (like a daisy chain effect) but either way it was a scarily lower number than i ever expected

im sure it was one of the posters who are up on their micro biology info but i can’t find the post now to share incase i am misinterpreting

"
the best analogy I've seen for viruses in general is its a living organism that wants to live and reproduce like all other life I doesn't want to kill you but if something is present it changes itselfto live like every other animal on the planet(don't take this as meaning its sentient)

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
over a year ago

Central

The Sars-Cov-2 virus doesn't appear to be particularly prone to mutation, compared to other types of viruses. The flu viruses mutate more, for example.

It's quite a large virus and mutations in some of it may have no effect on infectiousness or disease severity, the 2 key things that are probably going to be most important to us.

There have been quite a few studies on its mutation, including calculations of the mutation frequency. Correctly they focus on the key areas of health significance to us. If we just looked at all mutation frequencies, there would be more than just those that will affect how it affects us, how transmissible it is etc. Everything is always about context though, so it's worth understanding it in comparison to how viruses that we know, typically are. Levels of mutation are 1 thing, the other is what those mutations may actually result in - our priority is the hope that we are not unfortunate enough to have an adaptive shift that renders it outside of the scope of coverage of the vaccines that we have. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be a virus that is mutating rampantly.

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By *oubleswing2019 OP   Man
over a year ago

Colchester

Thank you folks for your valuable info and insights. Much appreciated.

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By *inkerbell67Woman
over a year ago

Clacton on sea essex

All virus mutate, the mrsa virus mutated, the flu mutates,

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By *oubleswing2019 OP   Man
over a year ago

Colchester


"All virus mutate, the mrsa virus mutated, the flu mutates, "

That's what I discovered.

All viruses mutate,

As part of their state,

But I wondered the rate,

Is it fast, slow this trait ?

Is it wonky or straight ?

Super quick out the gate ?

Or just fashionably late?

How do they dictate

How they procreate ?

With a host, they relate

Which decides some folks fate

So their change is innate

As they try to update

This was my sedate

Attempt at debate.

But now I go, mate

To have a wank.

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By *inky_couple2020Couple
over a year ago

North West


"All virus mutate, the mrsa virus mutated, the flu mutates, "

MRSA = methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. A bacterium.

Sophie has already said the majority, but to add, coronaviruses in general mutate at a much slower rate than influenza viruses (everyone's favourite comparison). This is because despite both being single stranded RNA genomes, coronaviruses possess an in-built proof reading mechanism (in the same way we have in the nuclei of our cells). This means that many incorrectly copied bases are corrected before the RNA replication is complete and this substantially slows down the rate at which mutations arise. Influenza viruses lack this ability to proof read and so accumulate mutations far more readily and frequently.

So, looking at flu doesn't really help. There's no specific number of times the virus replicates before a mutation arises - it's random. By one replication, we mean one single viral particle duplicating the solitary strand of RNA within it. Just to establish an infection, it's been estimated that the number of viral particles required as a minimum is somewhere between 250-1000 virions and if every single one of these enters a cell and starts replicating, you can see how the number of replication events (across the globally inflected population) is enormous.

The good news is many mutations don't actually cause functional changes in the virus (or any organism). Mutations are very often silent. This is because there are 20 amino acids (which make up proteins). The genome of any organism is interpreted in three "letter" sections called codons. There are 64 possible codons, but only 20 amino acids. How so? The answer is that many amino acids are coded for by multiple codons. As a crude example, it's a bit like American and English spellings of words like fetus and foetus. The spelling difference makes no difference to the understanding of the word itself; the meaning is unchanged.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago


"When you catch a virus it may not be only one.

you can have various strains present but one dominant virus presents it depends how deep they test how many are picked up "

No, that is Incredibly unlikely, by the time a host is contagious there will transmit only one dominant strain. Tests don’t pick uo strains in vast majority of cases, the new ‘uk/Kent” strain is an Anomaly in that respect. (Which is actualky an unbelievable strike of luck in efforts to track it)

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago


"All virus mutate, the mrsa virus mutated, the flu mutates,

MRSA = methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. A bacterium.

Sophie has already said the majority, but to add, coronaviruses in general mutate at a much slower rate than influenza viruses (everyone's favourite comparison). This is because despite both being single stranded RNA genomes, coronaviruses possess an in-built proof reading mechanism (in the same way we have in the nuclei of our cells). This means that many incorrectly copied bases are corrected before the RNA replication is complete and this substantially slows down the rate at which mutations arise. Influenza viruses lack this ability to proof read and so accumulate mutations far more readily and frequently.

So, looking at flu doesn't really help. There's no specific number of times the virus replicates before a mutation arises - it's random. By one replication, we mean one single viral particle duplicating the solitary strand of RNA within it. Just to establish an infection, it's been estimated that the number of viral particles required as a minimum is somewhere between 250-1000 virions and if every single one of these enters a cell and starts replicating, you can see how the number of replication events (across the globally inflected population) is enormous.

The good news is many mutations don't actually cause functional changes in the virus (or any organism). Mutations are very often silent. This is because there are 20 amino acids (which make up proteins). The genome of any organism is interpreted in three "letter" sections called codons. There are 64 possible codons, but only 20 amino acids. How so? The answer is that many amino acids are coded for by multiple codons. As a crude example, it's a bit like American and English spellings of words like fetus and foetus. The spelling difference makes no difference to the understanding of the word itself; the meaning is unchanged."

Yep all spot on (from a former geneticist)

Changes to the genotype are common, changes to the phenotype far less so.

As couple of posters have said, early indications are that Covid is not a particularly mutation prone virus.

also worth noting, given OPs intention to try and get a feel for long term outlook, is the types of vaccines rolling out now are first-in-kind RNA methods, in theory, they should be relatively easy to adapt to any mutations that may cause viral escape in the future. In reality it is rarely one mutation that causes this anyway but a drift iver months or years. Nothing is certain but I would be personally very confident that both through these new vaccine methods and the resources afforded to mutation/strain tracking globally we will be one or two steps ahead of this particular virus.

Lastly, In almost all

Known cases of prolonged pandemics of coronavirus, the tendency is for virus strains to mutate to higher transmissibility but less pathogenic. As another poster touched on, it is in a virus interest to survive and killing a host is a bad bet, as is making them so sick that treatments are required, a silent spreading virus is a successful one as a rule,

Hope this helps

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago


"Viruses can mutate, once they are inside a host for various reasons.

As I understand it, Covid being an RNA virus (Like SARS) is more prone to mutation, like all RNA viruses.

What I'd like to know is what is the successful mutation rate where the virus makes an adaption that furthers its chances in the wild, per say 100 people or 1000 people ? Or whatever metric it may have been measured against ?

I'm just trying to get a pragmatic idea of how many potential new variants we could expect to see over the coming year/years.

"

Don’t quote me on these numbers but last I glanced at the variation tree we were looking at about 41 variants so far defected in the uk, 3 of those are thought to have had a increase in transmissibility from predecessors

Guess that’s over 11 months now, if it gives you a rough idea

For what it’s worth, I think the touted 70% increase in transmissibility of the current variant we are all hearing about in media at the

Moment is utter tripe, it would be truly unprecedented for such a leap for any virus of any kind

If it’s 6-7% increase I’d even be suprised in my humble opinion. The “Italian strain” that swept through Europe became dominant one across the continent in 3 weeks at 7%, this uk one is even dominant across the uK in 14 weeks.

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