> 2b. the inserted furin cleavage site coding sequence is misaligned, breaking the codon TCA into two parts, which is (citation:) "very odd, clearly pointing to

> 2b. the inserted furin cleavage site coding sequence is misaligned, breaking the codon TCA into two parts, which is (citation:) "very odd, clearly pointing to an artificial origin" But what is odd about this? I don't know of any mechanism for mutagenesis, natural or otherwise, which respects codon boundaries. Codon boundaries don't exist in the DNA, then only arise through its interpretation by the ribosome. On the contrary, if i was engineering a polypeptide to add a furin cleavage site, i probably would align it to codon boundaries, so as not to disrupt the sequence.