bioRxiv ScienceSearch

Biology subjects

Suner, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Suner, A..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

A Proposal of New Feature Selection Method Sensitive to Outliers and Correlation

In disease diagnosis classification, ensemble learning algorithms enable strong and successful models by training more than one learning function simultaneously. This study aimed to eliminate the irrelevant variable problem with the proposed new feature selection method and compare the ensemble learning algorithms classification performances after eliminating the problems such as missing observation, classroom noise, and class imbalance that may occur in the disease diagnosis data. According to the findings obtained; In the preprocessed data, it was seen that the classification performance of the algorithms was higher than the raw version of the data. When the algorithms classification performances for the new proposed advanced t-Score and the old t-Score method were compared, the feature selection made with the proposed method showed statistically higher performance in all data sets and all algorithms compared to the old t-Score method (p = 0.0001).

bioinformatics

Mutations of SARS-CoV-2 nsp14 exhibit strong association with increased genome-wide mutation load

SARS-CoV-2 is a betacoronavirus responsible for human cases of COVID-19, a pandemic with global impact that first emerged in late 2019. Since then, the viral genome has shown considerable variance as the disease spread across the world, in part due to the zoonotic origins of the virus and the human host adaptation process. As a virus with an RNA genome that codes for its own genomic replication proteins, mutations in these proteins can significantly impact the variance rate of the genome, affecting both the survival and infection rate of the virus, and attempts at combating the disease. In this study, we analyzed the mutation densities of viral isolates carrying frequently observed mutations for four proteins in the RNA synthesis complex over time in comparison to wildtype isolates. Our observations suggest mutations in nsp14, an error-correcting exonuclease protein, have the strongest association with increased mutation load in both regions without selective pressure and across the genome, compared to nsp7, 8, and 12, which form the core polymerase complex. We propose nsp14 as a priority research target for understanding genomic variance rate in SARS-CoV-2 isolates, and nsp14 mutations as potential predictors for high mutability strains.

bioinformatics

Mutation density changes in SARS-CoV-2 are related to the pandemic stage but to a lesser extent in the dominant strain with mutations in spike and RdRp

Since its emergence in Wuhan, China in late 2019, the origin and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 have been among the most debated issues related to COVID-19. Throughout its spread around the world, the viral genome continued acquiring new mutations and some of them became widespread. Among them, 14408 C>T and 23403 A>G mutations in RdRp and S, respectively, became dominant in Europe and the US, which led to debates regarding their effects on the mutability and transmissibility of the virus. In this study, we aimed to investigate possible differences between time-dependent variation of mutation densities (MDe) of viral strains that carry these two mutations and those that do not. Our analyses at the genome and gene level led to two important findings: First, time-dependent changes in the average MDe of circulating SARS-CoV-2 genomes showed different characteristics before and after the beginning of April, when daily new case numbers started levelling off. Second, this pattern was much delayed or even non-existent for the "mutant" (MT) strain that harbored both 14408 C>T and 23403 A>G mutations. Although these differences were not limited to a few hotspots, it is intriguing that the MDe increase is most evident in two critical genes, S and Orf1ab, which are also the genes that harbor the defining mutations of the MT genotype. The nature of these unexpected relationships warrant further research.

genetics

RdRp mutations are associated with SARS-CoV-2 genome evolution

COVID-19, caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, started in China in late 2019, and soon became a global pandemic. With the help of thousands of viral genome sequences that have been accumulating, it has become possible to track the evolution of viral genome over time as it spread across the world. An important question that still needs to be answered is whether any of the common mutations affect the viral properties, and therefore the disease characteristics. Therefore, we sought to understand the effects of mutations in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), particularly the common 14408C>T mutation, on mutation rate and viral spread. By focusing on mutations in the slowly evolving M or E genes, we aimed to minimize the effects of selective pressure. Our results indicate that 14408C>T mutation increases the mutation rate, while the third-most common RdRp mutation, 15324C>T, has the opposite effect. It is possible that 14408C>T mutation may have contributed to the dominance of its co-mutations in Europe and elsewhere.

genomics