As more scientists around the world generate & share #monkeypox sequences, the international MPXV Lineage group has designated a further three lineages to help continue to classify monkeypox diversity.
Lineage B.1.6 is a fairly large lineage seemingly dominant in Peru, with a mutation not seen elsewhere. Despite not having international spread, its designation will be helpful for public health.
We are grateful to Victor Jimenez-Vasquez for proposing this lineage!
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Lineage B.1.7 has been found in North America, Africa, & Europe.
Lineage B.1.8 is currently seen in Germany, Spain, & the USA.
All of our designations are recorded publicly & available in both human- and machine-readable formats.
All of this information can be found on our Github - new lineages that meet the designation guidelines can also be proposed there: github.com/mpxv-lineages/…
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As always, we are grateful for the scientists, researchers, & public health workers around the world who are working to contribute to a better understanding of #monkeypox by generating & sharing their sequences.
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Designated #monkeypox lineages are integrated into Nextclade & the live MPX @nextstrain builds. They can also be found on @GenSpectrum website & API.
You can also find links to the @nextstrain curated #monkeypox#opendata metadata & sequences from NCBI/INSDC - including the lineage & clade assignments - at the github repo below.
An international cohort of scientists, many of whom helped propose the new #monkeypox clade names in June, have formed a group to designate new monkeypox lineages.
Initially, 5 new lineages stemming from the B.1 ('outbreak') clade have been designated.
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Designations are recorded publicly & can be proposed via GitHub. We aim for transparency, accessibility & designations that give useful 'handles' to aid discussion without stigmatizing nicknames.
Currently, we designate lineages based on:
- international spread
- 1+ mutation above parent
- 15+ sequences or represents undersampled diversity
- clear common phylogenetic structure
- 1+ openly available high quality reference sequence