Determining the Mutation Bias of Favipiravir in Influenza Virus Using Next-Generation Sequencing.

ABSTRACT: Favipiravir is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug that may be used to treat influenza. Previous research has identified that favipiravir likely acts as a mutagen, but the precise mutation bias that favipiravir induces in influenza virus RNAs has not been described. Here, we use next-generation sequencing (NGS) with barcoding of individual RNA molecules to accurately and quantitatively detect favipiravir-induced mutations and to sample orders of magnitude more mutations than would be possible through Sanger sequencing. We demonstrate that favipiravir causes mutations and show that favipiravir primarily acts as a guanine analogue and secondarily as an adenine analogue resulting in the accumulation of transition mutations. We also use a standard NGS pipeline to show that the mutagenic effect of

SUBMITTER: Goldhill DH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6321902 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature