“We have already detected the first signs of microevolution within the outbreak cluster, namely the emergence of 7 SNPs, leading to 3 descendant branches.”

The outbreak virus diverges a mean of 50 SNPs from those 2018-2019 viruses, which is far more than one would expect considering the estimated substitution rate for Orthopoxviruses.

One cannot discard the hypothesis that the divergent branch results from an evolutionary jump (leading to a hypermutated virus) caused by APOBEC3 editing.

Preprint: Multi-country outbreak of Monkeypox virus: genetic divergence and first signs of microevolution

(1/n) We now have 9 new monkyvirus full genome sequences from Portugal (May 15-17) using Illumina NextSeq 2000 and 201x mean coverage (5 also subjected to ONT MinION sequencing). All 10 sequences from Portugal (including original) can be downloaded here:https://t.co/FTub3yFV8x

— Roland Baker (@RolandBakerIII) May 23, 2022

Preprint: Monkeypox has epidemic potential