Search for: All records

The emergence of new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus poses serious problems to the control of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding how the variants originate is critical for effective control of the spread of the virus and the global pandemic. The study of the virus evolution so far has been dominated by phylogenetic tree analysis, which however is inappropriate for a few important reasons. Here we used phylogenetic network approach to study the origin of the VOC202012/01 (Alpha) or so-called UK variant (PANGO Lineage B.1.1.7). The multiple network analyses using different methods consistently revealed that the VOC202012/01 variant was a result of recombination, in contrast to the common assumption that the variant evolved from step-wise mutations in a linear order. The study provides an example for the power and application of phylogenetic network analysis in studying virus evolution, which can be applied to study the evolutionary processes leading to the emergence of other variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as many other viruses.