In a recently published paper, we have found that SARS-CoV-2 hot-spot mutations are significantly associated with inverted repeat loci and CG dinucleotides. However, fast-spreading strains with new mutations (so-called mink farm mutations, England mutations and Japan mutations) have been recently described. We used the new datasets to check the positioning of mutation sites in genomes of the new SARS-CoV-2 strains. Using an open-access Palindrome analyzer tool, we found mutations in these new strains to be significantly enriched in inverted repeat loci.

Department of Biology and Ecology Faculty of Science University of Ostrava Ostrava Czech Republic

Department of Biophysical Chemistry and Molecular Oncology Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences Brno Czech Republic

Department of Physics Faculty of Science University of Ostrava Ostrava Czech Republic

Faculty of Informatics Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

National Centre for Biomolecular Research Faculty of Science Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

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Goswami  P, Bartas  M, Lexa  M, et al.  SARS-CoV-2 hot-spot mutations are significantly enriched within inverted repeats and CpG island loci. Brief Bioinform  2020;22:1338–1345. PubMed PMC

van  Dorp  L, Tan  CC, Lam  SD, et al.  Recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2 genomes isolated from mink point to rapid host-adaptation. bioRxiv  2020. 10.1101/2020.11.16.384743. DOI

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Naveca  F, Nascimento  V, Souza  V, et al.  Phylogenetic relationship of SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Amazonas with emerging Brazilian variants harboring mutations E484K and N501Y in the Spike protein. virological.org (https://virological.org/t/phylogenetic-relationship-of-sars-cov-2-sequences-from-amazonas-with-emerging-brazilian-variants-harboring-mutations-e484k-and-n501y-in-the-spike-protein/585) 2021.

Brázda  V, Kolomazník  J, Lýsek  J, et al.  Palindrome analyser—a new web-based server for predicting and evaluating inverted repeats in nucleotide sequences. Biochem Biophys Res Commun  2016;478:1739–45. PubMed

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Special Issue "Bioinformatics of Unusual DNA and RNA Structures"

Genomic Analysis of Non-B Nucleic Acids Structures in SARS-CoV-2: Potential Key Roles for These Structures in Mutability, Translation, and Replication?

Interaction of Proteins with Inverted Repeats and Cruciform Structures in Nucleic Acids