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Scientists in Oregon have spotted a local version of a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus that first surfaced in Britain – but now it’s combined with a mutation that may make the variant less susceptible to vaccines.
Researchers have so far found only one case of this formidable combination, but genetic analysis has suggested that the variant was acquired in the community and did not occur in the patient.
“We didn’t import this from anywhere in the world – it just happened spontaneously,” said Brian O’Roak, a geneticist at the Oregon University of Health and Sciences who led the works. He and his colleagues are participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s efforts to track variants, and they’ve filed their findings in databases shared by scientists.
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The variant originally identified in Britain, called B.1.1.7, has spread rapidly in the United States and accounts for at least 2,500 cases in 46 states. This form of the virus is both more contagious and deadlier than the original version, and is expected to account for most infections in America in a matter of weeks.
The new version that surfaced in Oregon has the same backbone, but also a mutation – E484K, or “Eek” – seen in variants of the virus circulating in South Africa, Brazil and New York.
Laboratory studies and clinical trials in South Africa indicate that the Eek mutation makes current vaccines less effective by suppressing the body’s immune response. (The vaccines still work, but the results are worrying enough that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have started testing new versions of their vaccines designed to defeat the variant found in South Africa.)
The B.1.1.7 variant with Eek also appeared in Britain, being referred to as a “variant of concern” by scientists. But the virus identified in Oregon appears to have evolved independently, O’Roak said.
O’Roak and his colleagues found the variant among coronavirus samples collected by the Oregon State Public Health Laboratory across the state, including some from an outbreak at a healthcare facility. health. Of the 13 test results they analyzed, 10 were found to be B.1.1.7 alone, and one the combination.
Other experts said the discovery was not surprising, as the Eek mutation has appeared in virus forms all over the world. But the occurrence of the mutation in B.1.1.7 is worth watching, they said.
In Great Britain, this version of the variant represents a small number of cases. But by the time the suit evolved there, B.1.1.7 had already spread across the country.
“We’re at the point where B.1.1.7 has just been introduced” in the United States, said Stacia Wyman, a computational genomics expert at the University of California at Berkeley. “As she evolves and slowly becomes the dominant thing, she might accumulate more mutations.”
Viral mutations can strengthen or weaken each other. For example, the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil contain many of the same mutations, including Eek. But the Brazilian version has a mutation, K417N, which is not present in the South African version.
In a study published Thursday in Nature, researchers compared antibody responses to the three variants of concern – those identified in Britain, South Africa and Brazil. In line with other studies, they found that the variant that struck South Africa was the most resistant to antibodies produced by the immune system.
But the variant circulating in Brazil was not as resistant, even though it carried the Eek mutation. “If you have the second mutation, you don’t see such a bad effect,” said Michael Diamond, a viral immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study.
It’s too early to tell if the Oregon variant will behave like the South African or the Brazilian variant. But the idea that other mutations could weaken Eek’s effect is “great news,” Wyman said.
Overall, she said, the discovery of Oregon reinforces the need for people to continue to take precautions, including wearing a mask, until a substantial portion of the population is vaccinated.
“People should not panic but stay vigilant,” she said. “We can’t let our guard down just yet while there are still these more transmissible variants circulating.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2021 The New York Times Company
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