Is Sequence Analysis Of In Vitro Passage Of A Virus Publishable?

Question

[pld]

I have NGS data from different stocks of virus grown in different cell lines for two passages each, the early analysis says they're very similar (>90%), but the same results suggest there are differences. I plan on looking at selection pressures, phosphorylation sites and RNA structure, to see if the differences might have any functional impact. Although it isn't stellar, would it be worth going the extra mile with this and push it into a manuscript?

Answer 1

[Devon Ryan]

I would think so, yes. Particularly if the cell lines represent very different pressures or if the virus itself might have an impact on humans (or a food source), this could prove interesting.

[pld]

The cell lines come from different species and different tissues, the virus is also important for human health. I was just worried that the relatively high sequence similarity would make publishing a problem.

[Devon Ryan]

Did you measure the titer after each passage? If the efficiency of infection/viral production increased over passages then it could be interesting. If not, then there's probably no point in bothering writing it, since any changes don't have any obvious effect.