Global transmission and evolutionary dynamics of the Chikungunya virus.

ABSTRACT: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a re-emerging pathogen of global importance. We attempted to gain an insight into the organisation, distribution and mutational load of the virus strains reported from different parts of the world. We describe transmission dynamics and genetic characterisation of CHIKV across the globe during the last 65 years from 1952 to 2017. The evolutionary pattern of CHIKV was analysed using the E1 protein gene through phylogenetic, Bayesian and Network methods with a dataset of 265 sequences from various countries. The time to most recent common ancestor of the virus was estimated to be 491 years ago with an evolutionary rate of 2.78 × 10-4 substitutions/site/year. Genetic characterisation of CHIKV strains was carried out in terms of variable sites, selection pressure an

SUBMITTER: Deeba F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7118414 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature