Thread by @ejustin46

What are the DIFFERENCES between INFLUENZA and SARS-CoV-2 in terms of MUTATION rates and
why are they VERY DIFFERENT VIRUSES ?

Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 differ in mutation rates due to their genetic mixing processes: reassortment and recombination.

2) REASSORTMENT occurs when two viruses infect the same cell and exchange RNA segments, generating new strains. This is typical for segmented viruses like influenza.
RECOMBINATION, which occurs in viruses with single, non-segmented genomes like SARS-CoV-2 ...

3) ...involves the simpler exchange of genetic material during replication. As a result, recombination with SARS-COV-2 allows for quicker generation of genetic diversity, while reassortment with Influenza requires a more complex mixing of entire genome segments.

4) I used this study to illustrate my point because the subject covered here

is to test four dimensionality reduction techniques on simulated viral populations as well as real-world data from seasonal influenza A/ H3N2 and SARS-CoV-2.biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

5) They demonstrate that simple dimensionality reduction methods can effectively capture biologically-relevant information about the evolution and relationships of human pathogenic viruses, even for viruses that violate assumptions of traditional phylogenetic approaches.

Thanks