Dangerous change in variant responsible for second wave of Corona, mutation also bothers scientists

- New challenge for T478K mutation scientists

New Delhi, May 19, 2021, Wednesday

The variant of Covid-19 B.1.617.2 is spreading rapidly in India. One of the mutations that has occurred is becoming a new challenge for scientists. The T478K mutation in the spike protein is considered by some of the best laboratories in the world. It is possible that B.1.617.2 is showing infectivity, this is the mutation behind it. It is worrying that no specific information about the T478K mutation has been received yet. However, it is also interesting to note that this mutation is not found in other subtypes of B.1.617.

The latest study found that the rapidly spreading Mexican variant also has a T478K mutation. That is why the level of transition is increasing. Anurag Agarwal, a scientist at INSACOG and director of the Institute of Genomic Biology in India, said in an interview that the E482Q mutation in B.1.617 was the key to neutralization reduction. P681R helps enhance cell infusion. Although there is no E4842Q mutation in the B.1.617.2 sub-lineage, it is spreading.

This means that the E482Q is not a concern. The presence of a new mutation T478K is definite, but not all information about it is available yet. And until then, is it happening because of P681R or because of T478K? That cannot be said.

Agarwal, in collaboration with Ravindra Gupta of Cambridge University, conducted a research on the response to antibodies to B.1.617, which also mentions T478K. Gupta tweeted last fortnight that he blamed T487K mutations for the breakthrough infection. Other scientists believe that the infectivity of this subtype is due to a combination of T487K and L452R mutations in the spike protein.

The University of Michigan also wrote in a recent study about the T478K, that it may have made the Mexican variant B.1.1.222 more contagious than Sae. The university conducted research on vaccine-surviving and rapidly spreading mutations in the United States, Singapore, Spain, India and other countries worst affected by COVID-19. According to research, of all the mutations in the variant, its growth rate is more than a hundred after October 2020.

The study said that the high binding free NGA with ACE receptor (human) cells suggests that the T478K mutation could make SARS-Cove-Two more contagious and lethal. However according to research, T478K does not cause any problems for antibodies.

A further study by the University of Bologna, after examining 1 million genomic sequences, says that its spread to SARS-Cove-2 sequences after 2021 is worrying. According to a study published in the Journal of Medical Virology, these mutations have been observed in America, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland, with the exception of Mexico. Studies have shown that T478K is very important for better understanding of Covid-19.