Ep. 161 Monkeypox Pt 2: APOBEC3 and Microevolution

Petri Dish

Sorry about the delay in this release folks! In this episode, we revisit the current unusual Monkeypox outbreak and dive into the DNA of this virus to try to understand why it is so much more global this time. Spoiler alert: the DNA currently doesn't have answers for us, but it seems to be mutating faster than normal!

References:

https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/monkeypox/response/2022/us-map.html

https://worldhealthorg.shinyapps.io/mpx_global/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.28036

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.10.495526v1.full

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01907-y

https://virological.org/t/initial-observations-about-putative-apobec3-deaminase-editing-driving-short-term-evolution-of-mpxv-since-2017/830

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6107253/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/12/monkeypox-virus-origins-nigeria-sexual-transmission/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8310219/