Omicron Variant Might Have Come From Covid-19 Mutation In Mice, Claim Scientists

The ongoing surge in Covid-19 around the world is driven by its Omicron variant - a highly transmissible mutation of the original strain that wreaked havoc on global healthcare systems.

While Omicron appears to be less severe (in the sense that healthy people will most likely be fine but it doesn't mean you should flout Covid-19 precautions), its origins are not known to scientists. Most scientists believed that a highly sick patient suffering from Covid-19 gave the virus what it needed to create Omicron.

But new findings may challenge that understanding after scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing recently presented evidence to suggest that the variant emerged from a mouse.

istock

How it may have happened

Scientists believe that the mouse could have been infected with an older strain of Covid-19 in what is called a "reverse zoonotic transfer" following which the mutations that birthed Omicron took place in the mouse.

Eventually, it may have jumped back to humans. Scientists added that if Omicron in fact mutated in a mouse, then all 45 mutations should be reflected in the "molecular spectrum" of the species. Their experiments revealed that the molecular spectrum of all virus variants is quite different from Omicron. In fact, it resembled the spectrum found in mouse cells.

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Also read:?Omicron Surge: 10 Indian States Projected To Be Worst-Hit By Rising Covid-19 Cases

According to their findings, it's possible that the virus mutated in a mouse over the course of last year before jumping back to humans and later spreading like wildfire.

AFP

It's still unclear what kind of mouse paved way for the high number of mutations seen in Omicron. But this theory could be true, for it's possible for viruses to jump from animals to humans and back to animals then again to humans. The same thing may have happened here.??The study was posted on BioRxiv and published later by the Journal of Genetics and Genomics.

Also read:?Rising Omicron Cases Could Lead To More Dangerous Variants Of COVID: What WHO Said

What do you think about this study that pins Omicron on a mouse? Let us know in the comments below.

If you want to get into the scientific nomenclature of the study, you can read it here.?For more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.

References

Hewitt, J. (2022, January 5). Omicron might have come from a mouse, but what kind of mouse? MedicalXpress.?