Genetics Research May Help Identify More Dangerous Strains of the Virus That Causes COVID-19

Viral mutations during the COVID-19 pandemic could make the SARS-CoV-2 virus more dangerous. A new study published in Genetic Epidemiology has examined the genetic code of SARS-CoV-2 viruses that have infected patients, looking for links between different mutations and patient deaths.

For the study, researchers analyzed 7,548 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from COVID-19 patients worldwide and looked for a link between genomic variants and mortality. A total of 29,891 sites in the viral genome were assessed.

One location was significantly linked to patient mortality. Mutations at this location cause changes in part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which plays a key role in virus entry into host cells.

“When we applied the methodology of genome-wide association studies to COVID-19 genomes in the fall of 2020, we noticed one locus in the COVID-19 genomes from Brazil that was associated with mortality and later became part of the definition of the P.1 strain from Brazil,” said co-lead author Georg Hahn, PhD, of Harvard University. The P1. strain was the cause of a deadly COVID-19 wave in the Latin American country. It is more contagious and more resistant to antibodies than the original strain.

For more information on this research, see Genome-wide association studies to accurately highlight more lethal COVID-19 variants.

Reference: “Genome-wide association analysis of COVID-19 mortality risk in SARS-CoV-2 genomes identifies mutation in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that colocalizes with Brazilian strain P.1” by Georg Hahn, Chloe M. Wu, Sanghun Lee, Sharon M. Lutz, Surender Khurana, Lindsey R. Baden, Sebastien Haneuse, Dandi Qiao, Julian Hecker, Dawn L. DeMeo, Rudolph E. Tanzi, Manish C. Choudhary, Behzad Etemad, Abbas Mohammadi, Elmira Esmaeilzadeh , Michael H. Cho, Jonathan Z. Li, Adrienne G. Randolph, Nan M. Laird, Scott T. Weiss, Edwin K. Silverman, Katharina Ribbeck, and Christoph Lange, June 22, 2021, Genetic Epidemiology.
DOI: 10.1002 / gepi.22421