3.4. Phylogenetic analysis of Peruvian PDCoV S gene shows close relationship to the Mexican PDCoV within the North American phylogroup
S gene is one of the most variable genes among coronaviruses. This is due to its function in cell attachment and viral replication. This high polymorphism makes the S gene a powerful tool to estimate the evolutionary relationship among virus strains belonging to the same genetic group. Hence, we performed a phylogenetic analysis using the PDCoV S nucleotide sequences publicly available with our Peruvian S nucleotide sequence to evaluate their evolutionary distance (see Figure 4A). Our results indicate that our PDCoV strain has close relationship to the Mexican PDCoV strain (98.65 – 99.21 % of nucleotide identity) within the North American phylogroup. Similarly, S protein phylogenetic analysis reveals similar evolutionary relationship among strains analysed. Yet, S phylogenetic analysis evidences that Peruvian PDCoV has a certain degree of divergency from the North American phylogroup.