Analysis of ORF8 Gene Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 Isolates: A Bioinformatics and AI Approach

This study analyzes 99 complete ORF8 sequences from SARS-CoV-2 isolates retrieved from the NCBI Nucleotide database. Using a custom Python script (Biopython, pandas, matplotlib), five most frequent mutations were identified: 93C>T (90.9%), 136A>T (89.9%), 232G>A (89.9%), 95A>T (87.9%), and 140C>T (87.9%). The ORF8 protein is involved in immune modulation, making it a potential target for antiviral therapy. The full code is available on GitHub: https://github.com/kadyr-envoy/ORF8_mutation_analysis