Mutational landscape and dominant lineages in the SARS-CoV-2 infections in the state of Telangana, India

The novel Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causing COVID-19 has rapidly turned into a pandemic, infecting millions and causing ~7 million deaths across the globe. In addition to studying the mode of transmission and evasion of host immune system, analysing the viral mutational landscape constitutes an area under active research.

The latter is expected to impart knowledge on the emergence of different clades, subclades, viral protein functions and protein-protein and protein-RNA interactions during replication/transcription cycle of virus and response to host immune checkpoints. In this study we have attempted to bring forth the viral genomic variants defining the major clade(s) as identified from samples collected from the state of Telangana, India.