With the exponential spread of COVID-19 pandemic across the world within the last six months, SARS-CoV-2 strains are continuously trying to adapt themselves in their host environment by random mutations. While doing so, some variants with evolutionary advantages such as better human to human transmissibility potential should get naturally selected. This short communication demonstrates how the mutation probability patterns are evolving in 864 SAR-CoV-2 strains isolated from COVID-19 patients across diverse Indian states. We have identified 30 such variants showing contrasting mutational probabilities in the span of four months. Out of these, the mutational probabilities of 25 variants including C14408T (in RdRp gene), A23403G (in spike gene), C6312A (nsp3 gene) are continuously increasing suggesting that these mutations are being propagated with time due to their unexplored evolutionary advantages. In contrast, the mutational probabilities of five variants including C6312A (nsp3 gene), G11083T (nsp6 gene), C28311T (N gene) have significantly decreased in May-June as compared to March-April, suggesting these mutations are being terminated with time. Further in-depth investigation of these identified variants will provide valuable knowledge about the evolution, infection strategies, transmission rates, and epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in India.
Dynamic tracking of variant frequencies depicts the evolution of mutation sites amongst SARS-CoV-2 genomes from India