Published 12 May 2020
Researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) recently discovered a new COVID-19 coronavirus mutation: a DNA deletion in a virus sample from a patient in Tempe, which is similar to a mutation that occurred in the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus when it began to weaken.
In the ASU study, researchers used a new technology at the university’s Genomics Facility known as next-generation sequencing to sift through the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The ORF7a gene produces an accessory protein which assists the virus in infecting and replicating inside the human body. The protein is believed to help the virus bypass the immune system, allowing the virus to replicate and kill the cell before spreading to others.
Deletion of the gene that produces the protein thus suggests that the virus may be weakening, similarly to the one that causes SARS.
“One of the reasons why this mutation is of interest is because it mirrors a large deletion that arose in the 2003 SARS outbreak,” Efrem Lim, an ASU researcher and the lead study author, said in a statement accompanying the release. During the middle and late stages of the SARS epidemic, the virus underwent mutations that weakened it.
However, study co-author Matthew Scotch told the New York Post that it is too soon to definitely state that the COVID-19 coronavirus is weakening.
“The takeaway is that one virus had a large deletion which demonstrates that it is possible for the virus to transmit without having complete portions of its genetic material. This was one virus and we do not suggest that this means a ‘weakening’ of any kind,” Scotch said in an email.
The latest study comes after a report published on April 30 by scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico showed a new strain of the COVID-19 coronavirus that is more dominant and contagious than earlier varieties.
According to the researchers, the new strain first appeared some time in February in Europe and then migrated to the East Coast of the United States. Officials noted that the strain, referred to as mutation spike D614G, has been the globe’s dominant COVID-19 strain since mid-March. ( Medical News Today )
