Assessing the Potential Role of Cats (Felis catus) as Generators of Relevant SARS-CoV-2 Lineages during the Pandemic

Several questions regarding the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 remain poorly elucidated. One of these questions is the possible evolutionary impact of SARS-CoV-2 after the infection in domestic animals. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the potential role of cats as generators of relevant SARS-CoV-2 lineages during the pandemic. A total of 105 full-length genome viral sequences obtained from naturally infected cats during the pandemic were evaluated by distinct evolutionary algorithms. Analyses were enhanced, including a set of highly related SARS-CoV-2 sequences recovered from human populations. Our results showed the apparent high susceptibility of cats to the infection SARS-CoV-2 compared with other animal species. Evolutionary analyses indicated that the phylogenomic characteristics displayed by cat populations were influenced by the dominance of specific SARS-CoV-2 genetic groups affecting human populations. However, disparate dN/dS rates at some genes between populations recovered from cats and humans suggested that infection in these two species may suggest a different evolutionary constraint for SARS-CoV-2. Interestingly, the branch selection analysis showed evidence of the potential role of natural selection in the emergence of five distinct cat lineages during the pandemic. Although these lineages were apparently irrelevant to public health during the pandemic, our results suggested that additional studies are needed to understand the role of other animal species in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic.