Profiling of Initial Available SARS-CoV-2 Sequences from Iranian Related COVID-19 Patients

The etiologic agent SARS-CoV-2 has caused the outbreak of COVID-19 which is spread widely around the world. It is vital to uncover and investigate the full genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the world to track changes in this virus. To this purpose, SARS-CoV-2 full genome sequence profiling of 20 patients in Iran and different countries that already had a travel history to Iran or contacts with Iranian cases were provided from the GISAID database. The bioinformatics analysis showed 44 different nucleotide mutations that caused 26 nonsynonymous mutations in protein sequences with regard to the reference full genome of the SARS-CoV-2 sequence (NC_045512.2). R207C, V378I, M2796I, L3606F, and A6407V in ORF1ab were common mutations in these sequences. Also, some of the detected mutations only were found in Iranian data in comparison with all the available sequences of SARS-CoV-2. The position of S protein mutations showed they were far from the binding site of this protein with angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) as the host cell receptor. These results can be helpful to design specific diagnostic tests, trace the SARS-CoV-2 sequence changes in Iran, and explore therapeutic drugs and vaccines.