Table 3.

Comparing the quasispecies characteristics in “a” determinant region at both nucleotide level and amino acid level based on NGS assay between case group and control group

Region of variation (level)	Case group (n=15) Median (IQR) (range)	Control group (n=26) Median (IQR) (range)	P value
Mutant frequency (nt)	0 (0–0.0002)	0.0004 (0–0.0027)	0.0210
	(0–0.0042)	(0–0.0068)
Mutant frequency (aa)	0 (0–0.0006)	0.0009 (0–0.0058)	0.0490
	(0–0.0126)	(0–0.0205)
Shannon entropy (nt)	0 (0–0.0055)	0.0105 (0–0.0454)	0.0180
	(0–0.046)	(0–0.1031)
Shannon entropy (aa)	0 (0–0.0055)	0.009 (0–0.0419)	0.0460
	(0–0.046)	(0–0.0709)
Genetic distance (nt)	0 (0–0.014)	0.0258 (0–0.1919)	0.0210
	(0–0.3026)	(0–0.4927)
Genetic distance (aa)	0 (0–0.014)	0.0224 (0–0.1381)	0.0490
	(0–0.3026)	(0–0.4927)

P values were calculated by Mann-Whitney test.

aa, amino acid; NGS, next-generation sequencing; nt, nucleotide.