Related Articles SARS CoV 2 hot spot mutations are significantly enriched within inverted repeats and CpG island loci Brief Bioinform 2020 Dec 21 Authors Goswami P Bartas M Lexa M Boh lov N Voln A erve J erve ov V Pe inka P punda V Fojta M Br zda V Abstract SARS CoV 2 is an intensively investigated virus from the order Nidovirales Coronaviridae family that causes COVID 19 disease in humans Through enormous scientific effort thousands of viral strains have been sequenced to date thereby creating a strong background for deep bioinformatics studies of the SARS CoV 2 genome In this study we inspected high frequency mutations of SARS CoV 2 and carried out systematic analyses of their overlay with inverted repeat IR loci and CpG islands The main conclusion of our study is that SARS CoV 2 hot spot mutations are significantly enriched within both IRs and CpG island loci This points to their role in genomic instability and may predict further mutational drive of the SARS CoV 2 genome Moreover CpG islands are strongly enriched upstream from viral ORFs and thus could play important roles in transcription and the viral life cycle We hypothesize that hypermethylation of these loci will decrease the transcription of viral ORFs and could therefore limit the progression of the disease PMID 33341900 PubMed as supplied by publisher