Brinkmann, A. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2023

MpoxRadar: a worldwide Mpox genomic surveillance dashboard

Monkeypox (Mpox) is mutating at an exceptional rate for a DNA virus and its global spread is concerning, making genomic surveillance a necessity. With MpoxRadar, we provide an interactive dashboard to track virus variants on mutation level worldwide. MpoxRadar allows users to select among different genomes as reference for comparison. The occurrence of mutation profiles based on the selected reference is indicated on an interactive world map that shows the respective geographic sampling site in customizable time ranges to easily follow the frequency or trend of defined mutations. Furthermore, the user can filter for specific mutations, genes, countries, genome types, and sequencing protocols and download the filtered data directly from MpoxRadar. On the server, we automatically download all Mpox genomes and metadata from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on a daily basis, align them with the different reference genomes, generate mutation profiles, which are stored and linked to the available metainformation in a database. This makes MpoxRadar a practical tool for the genomic survaillance of Mpox, supporting users with limited computational resources. MpoxRadar is open-source and freely accessible at https://MpoxRadar.net. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT O_FIG_DISPLAY_L [Figure 1] M_FIG_DISPLAY C_FIG_DISPLAY

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2022

Possible adaption of the 2022 Monkeypox virus to the human host through gene duplication and loss

Poxviruses are known to evolve slower than RNA viruses, with rearrangements such as gene gain and loss as the main driver for host adaption. In 2022 the world is being challenged by the largest global outbreak so far of Monkeypox virus, and the virus seems to have established itself in the human community. Here we report five MPXV genomes with extensive gene duplication and loss, including duplications of up to 18,000 bp to the opposed genome end, and deletions at the site of insertion of up to 16,000 bp, as a possible adaption to the human host.

molecular biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Genome sequencing of the Monkeypox virus 2022 outbreak with Amplicon-based Oxford Nanopore MinION sequencing

We present an amplicon-based assay for MinION Nanopore sequencing of monkeypox virus genomes from clinical specimens, obtaining high-quality results for up to 99 % of the genomes, even for samples with high Ct values of up to 30 which are not suitable for shotgun sequencing.

molecular biology↗