International Journal of Molecular Sciences Article Multiple Recombination Events and Strong Purifying Selection at the Origin of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein Increased Correlated Dynamic Movements Massimiliano S. Tagliamonte 1,2,† , Nabil Abid 3,4,†, Stefano Borocci 5,6 , Elisa Sangiovanni 5, David A. Ostrov 2 , Sergei L. Kosakovsky Pond 7, Marco Salemi 1,2,*, Giovanni Chillemi 5,8,*,‡ and Carla Mavian 1,2,*,‡ 1 Emerging Pathogen Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA; mstagliamonte@ufl.edu 2 Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32610, USA;
[email protected]fl.edu 3 Laboratory of Transmissible Diseases and Biological Active Substances LR99ES27, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Monastir, Rue Ibn Sina, 5000 Monastir, Tunisia;
[email protected] 4 Department of Biotechnology, High Institute of Biotechnology of Sidi Thabet, University of Manouba, BP-66, 2020 Ariana-Tunis, Tunisia 5 Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest Systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, via S. Camillo de Lellis s.n.c., 01100 Viterbo, Italy;
[email protected] (S.B.);
[email protected] (E.S.) 6 Institute for Biological Systems, National Research Council, Via Salaria, Km 29.500, 00015 Monterotondo, Rome, Italy 7 Department of Biology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA;
[email protected] 8 Institute of Biomembranes, Bioenergetics and Molecular Biotechnologies (IBIOM), National Research Council, Via Giovanni Amendola, 122/O, 70126 Bari, Italy * Correspondence:
[email protected]fl.edu (M.S.);
[email protected] (G.C.); cmavian@ufl.edu (C.M.) † Authors contributed equally as first to this work. ‡ Authors contributed equally as last to this work.