About the Authors

Katharina Bilotti

Contributed equally to this work with: Katharina Bilotti, Sarah Keep

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States of America

Sarah Keep

Contributed equally to this work with: Katharina Bilotti, Sarah Keep

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Andrew P. Sikkema

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States of America

John M. Pryor

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States of America

James Kirk

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Katalin Foldes

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Nicole Doyle

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Ge Wu

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Graham Freimanis

Roles Data curation, Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Giulia Dowgier

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom

Oluwapelumi Adeyemi

Roles Investigation

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

S. Kasra Tabatabaei

Roles Investigation

Affiliation New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States of America

Gregory J. S. Lohman

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

erica.bickerton@pirbright.ac.uk (EB); lohman@neb.com (GJSL)

Affiliation New England Biolabs, Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States of America

Erica Bickerton

Roles Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

erica.bickerton@pirbright.ac.uk (EB); lohman@neb.com (GJSL)

Affiliation The Pirbright Institute, Woking, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of the manuscript have the following competing interests: When performing this research and drafting this manuscript, KB, APS, JMP, SKT, and GJSL were employees of New England Biolabs, a manufacturer and vendor of molecular biology reagents including DNA ligases and Type IIS restriction enzymes. New England Biolabs funded the work and paid the salaries of these authors. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. A patent has previously been filed by The Pirbright Institute to protect the intellectual property of the work surrounding the mutations in nsp 10 and nsp 14 (Patent name: Coronavirus, Number EP3172319B1, Authors: Erica Bickerton, Sarah Keep, and Paul Britton). This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.