Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A New Way To Trace Sars-Cov-2 Variants Through Weighted Network Analysis Of Frequency Trajectories Of Mutations, Paul W. Bible, Qiang Huang, Qiang Zhang, Qiaoxing Liang, Fangfang Zheng, Ying Wang, Yuantao Hao, Yu Liu

Computer Science Faculty publications

Early detection of SARS-CoV-2 variants enables timely tracking of clinically important strains in order to inform the public health response. Current subtype-based variant surveillance depending on prior subtype assignment according to lag features and their continuous risk assessment may delay this process. We proposed a weighted network framework to model the frequency trajectories of mutations (FTMs) for SARS-CoV-2 variant tracing, without requiring prior subtype assignment. This framework modularizes the FTMs and conglomerates synchronous FTMs together to represent the variants. It also generates module clusters to unveil the epidemic stages and their contemporaneous variants. Eventually, the module-based variants are assessed by …