Tracking the evolution of viruses, they speak with science

"You put down all the work at hand and do it with all your strength." On January 31st, on the seventh day of the New Year, Lu Jian pulled his two doctoral students into a small group.
he assigned students a task to study new coronavirus based on the public genome sequences in the database.
, Lu Jian did not expect the new crown pneumonia outbreak to last so long, affecting so many people. His idea was simple - to find something to do for students who were temporarily unable to return to school and to learn something new.
Lu Jian is a researcher in the School of Life Sciences of Peking University and the National Key Laboratory for Protein and Plant Genetics Research, focusing on evolutionary biology. According to the epidemic prevention and control requirements, students are not yet able to return to school. At the end of May, Lu Jian walked through an empty laboratory with a science and technology daily reporter and smiled and said, "I'm not used to it." "
"This place is so
" In late January, research on the new coronavirus began to sprung up. On January 30th an article in Nature revealed that 54 English-language papers related to the new coronavirus had been published.
Lu Jian remembers that when he was studying for a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2003, his tutor, Mr. Wu Zhongyi, worked with Mr. Zhao Guoping and other experts in China to complete the study of the evolution of SARS genome. At that time, Lu Jian was not directly involved in the work, but was also shocked by the power of evolutionary biology in combining genomics. In the face of this new crown pneumonia outbreak, Lu Jian thought, perhaps he can do some genome evolution work, "this is our old line."
also took it as a practical teaching, students can not come back, but learning to continue.
of the evolution of the virus genome is gradually unfolding. This is a single-stranded RNA virus with nearly 30,000 nucleotides in the genome, encodes 12 genes, and encodes nearly 98% of the genome.
the study began, they caught the first unusual thing.
, there was not much data to analyze. They were able to analyze only the genome data of 103 viruses, even if they did so while supplementing the updated data.
but based on these 103 sequences, at bits 8782 and 28144 of the reference genome, the team saw a mutation in the "packaging" -- which appeared to be two highly interlocking mutation bits.
mutations in the general gene are random, but the mutations here are different - "You must have me." "I didn't know what the discovery meant at the time, I just thought it was unusual."
lu Jian showed his findings to reporters by casting a screen: "You see, there are two very obvious genealogies in the new coronavirus genome." The
team named the two lineages "L" and "S" because the amino acids corresponding to the genome's 28,144-bit mutation were resine (L) and serine (S). Of the 103 samples, 72 were L-spectrum and 29 were S-spectrum.
between these genealogies means that this differentiation is already early in the evolution of the virus. So which genealogy is older?
here, Lu Jian task force also introduced a common means to do evolutionary analysis - outer group analysis. Using the older virus as a reference line, they found that the L-line, which accounts for a larger proportion of the sample, was actually "later dominant" and that it was actually younger than the S-line.
students: only once in a few months,
" outbreak is in there. "This is a phrase often said by Wu Great Wall, a doctoral student in the group. The outbreak is an "order", a responsibility and a pressure.
is a challenging learning process for students, and for the new coronavirus. They must quickly master previously unfamiliar software and analytics tools to this hot and unfamiliar field. After a brief groping, find your place, camp out, and dig deep.
"If you have a message, you go back, you have a job to do." Wu Great Wall described their working conditions in this way. On one occasion, we worked together to change the paper in the WeChat group, changing from 6 p.m. the first day to 5 a.m. the next day.
they all felt that time was running out.
, a third-year ph.D. student, has been out of the house once since the winter vacation.
necessary communication between parents and children is at dinner. Team members often have voice discussions, Tang Xiaolu can hear the mobile phone on the other end of the uncle and aunt in the urge - "eat!" Her comrades would pause briefly and shout back, "Wait a minute!" Wait a minute! "
" Tang Xiaolu, Wu Great Wall, Yao Xinmin, Wu Xinkai... These students have a strong sense of responsibility, and they are indeed more 'life-threatening' in doing research. "The sword boasted of them one by one.
, in the eyes of the students, Mr. Lu is also a seemingly no rest of the "tough role." "He used to send messages in the group at one or two o'clock at night, and when he looked at it in the morning, the teacher showed up again. " Tang said.
will continue to speak with science
On March 3rd, the National Science Review published a paper on the origin and evolution of SARS-CoV-2, a combination of Lu Jian and
's Cui Jie at the Pasteur Institute in Shanghai. One of the most notable is the genealogy division of the new coronavirus.
for Lu Jian, what happens next is what he calls the "most difficult" part - too many people to follow, too many misreadings, and controversy ensues.
the conclusions of the paper were added to the extended interpretation, appeared in the hot search on Weibo, Lu Jian's mailbox, received from ordinary people around the world to inquire about the mail. They asked Lu Jian, has the virus mutated? Will it affect vaccine effectiveness?
, RNA virus mutations are normal, but how these mutations affect the function of the virus requires further study.
"I didn't expect so many people to pay attention!" Lu Jian sighed, "This is pressure, but also a spur." After
the paper was published, foreign researchers questioned the reliability of the virus's componenting on the website. Lu Jian explained the research methods and conclusions in detail to the doubters.
about a month after the publication of the paper by the Lu Jian Task Force, there were also teams abroad reporting on the division of the virus. In fact, the parting of the virus in that article is basicly the same as that of the Lu Jian task force.
now, there are more than 33,000 virus genome sequences in the public database, and more than 99.5% of the viral genomes can still be clearly divided into L or S lines. In other words, the team's conclusions based on 103 genome sequences were well-proven and further validated.
, the task force is still on the axis. Together with their collaborators, they subdivided the sub-lineal lines of the two genealogies, mapped the world distribution of the sub-line of the new coronavirus, and reached some preliminary conclusions on the pathogenicity of different genealogies of the virus.
" new coronavirus is the common enemy of all mankind, can do its part, but also a contribution. "Lu Jian would like to thank a lot of people: Wuhan University related team,
Kunming Animal Institute Lu Xuemei researcher and other peers, as well as
and Professor Wu Zhongyi and other senior scientists organization and guidance ... In these people, he saw a strong sense of social responsibility and forgetful scientific research spirit. Lu Jian has repeatedly stressed that the team's genome analysis work is based on the joint efforts of front-line medical personnel and researchers in China and around the world. "We will use this valuable data to continue to explore the evolutionary laws of viruses and speak purely of science."