We have collected a large set of 377 publicly available complete genome sequences of the COVID-19 virus, the previously known flu-causing coronaviruses , HCov-229E, HCov-OC43, HCov-NL63 and HCov-HKU1 , and the deadly pathogenic P3/P4 viruses, SARS, MERS, Victoria, Lassa, Yamagata, Ebola, and Dengue. This article reports a computational study of the similarities and the evolutionary relationships of COVID-19 strains from different countries and between COVID-19 and the related viruses using our newly developed big sequence data analysis tool I-MLCS, the existing MEGA 6.0 system, and a clustering algorithm. Similarity analysis shows that two strains of the COVID-19 virus taking rhinolophine as host have very high similarities with the COVID-19 virus taking human as host, although the average similarity between the strains of the virus taking pangolin as host and taking human as host is higher. Evolutionary relationship analysis shows that about 13 strains of the COVID-19 virus sequenced in 5 countriesare very likely to be connected to or can potentially lead researchers to find the first generation COVID-19 virus and its origin .
Today, we are all threatened by an unprecedented pandemic: COVID-19. How different is it from other coronaviruses? Will it be attenuated or become more virulent? Which animals may be its original host? In this study, we analyzed 377 publicly available complete genome sequences for the COVID-19 virus, the previously known flu-causing coronaviruses ( HCov-229E, HCov-OC43, HCov-NL63 and HCov-HKU1 ) and the lethal, pathogenic P3/P4 viruses, SARS, MERS, Victoria, Lassa, Yamagata, Ebola, and Dengue. We found strong similarities between the current circulating COVID-19 and SARS and MERS, as well as COVID-19 in rhinolophines and pangolins. On the contrary, COVID-19 shares little similarity with the flu-causing coronaviruses and the other P3/P4 viruses. Strikingly, we observed divergence of COVID-19 strains isolated from human hosts has steadily increased from December 2019 to March 2020, suggesting COVID-19 is actively evolving in human hosts. From all existing human COVID-19 genome sequences, we calculated the first common model that represents the shared sequences of the human COVID-19 strains, which provides important information for vaccine and antibody development. Geographic and time-course analysis of the evolutionary trees of the human COVID-19 reveals possibly heterogeneous evolutional paths among strains from 21 countries. This finding has important implications to the management of COVID-19 and the development of vaccines .
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virus sequenced in 5 countriesare very likely to be connected to or can potentially lead researchers to find the first generation
strains isolated from human hosts has steadily increased from December 2019 to March 2020, suggesting
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virus and its origin
is actively evolving in human hosts. From all existing human COVID-19 genome sequences, we calculated the first common model that represents the shared sequences of the human COVID-19 strains, which provides important information for vaccine and antibody development. Geographic and time-course analysis of the evolutionary trees of the human COVID-19 reveals possibly heterogeneous evolutional paths among strains from 21 countries. This finding has important implications to the management of COVID-19 and the development of vaccines