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The monkeypox virus is mutating. Are scientists worried?

In some samples, large chunks of the virus’s genome have disappeared — but understanding whether the mutations affect its behaviour will be difficult.
  1. Max Kozlov
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As researchers at the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul were sequencing samples of the monkeypox virus a few months ago, they made a surprising discovery. In one sample collected from an infected person, a large chunk of the virus’s genome was missing, and another chunk had moved to an entirely different spot in the sequence.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03171-z

References

  1. Gigante, C. M. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.09.16.508251 (2022).

  2. Hatcher, E. L. et al. Viruses 7, 2126–2146 (2015).

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