HYDERABAD: After the UK variant, the latest mutant of the novel coronavirus to be kept under the watch list is the Nextstrain, that was first detected in Brazil last month. This
new strain has already undergone 10 mutations and health experts are not sure if it reacts to the vaccines that are being developed now.
Indian scientists are also working to sequence the Brazil strain as it is one of the several strains of the novel coronavirus that escapes the immune system. Moreover, the Brazil strain contains several genetic changes observed in other leading strains.
Though no cases of Nextstrain have been reported so far in India, health experts feel that it is a strain of concern. They feel so because Japan, where this variant has been detected apart from Brazil, has reported a sudden spurt in Covid-19 cases. There are also chances of reinfection by the new strain in patients, who have already recovered from the wild strain of the virus first detected in Wuhan in China, 13 months ago. The possibility of more than one strain of the virus simultaneously infecting individuals also exists and is being looked into.
According to researchers, the Brazil variant has 17 unique changes in amino acid (genetic material for building proteins), three deletions, and four synonymous mutations (which do not change the amino acid sequence). Ten changes were noticed on the spike.
The Brazil variant (named P.1) is characterised by mutants like L18F, T20N, P26S, D138Y, R190S, K417T, E484K, N501Y, H655Y and T1027I, tweeted senior genomics scientist Vinod Scaria. There are multiple convergent mutations of biological relevance in spike of the Brazil strain.
A research study by an international team of scientists has found “a unique constellation of lineage defining mutations, including several mutations of known biological importance”. The new variant was found in 42 per cent of positive samples from Manaus, a city in Brazil, between December 15 and December 23, 2020.
“The recent emergence of variants with multiple shared mutations in spike raises concern about convergent evolution to a new phenotype, potentially associated with an increase in transmissibility or propensity for re-infection of individuals,” cautioned Dr Nuno R Faria, infection diseases epidemiologist and one of the authors of the research study that analysed the Brazil variant of the virus.
Even as the Brazil variant is creating a scare in the West, Indian scientists are already busy studying its genome. Earlier, they had not only sequenced the genome of the UK variant, but also cultured it in the laboratory, a scientific feat, which no one has done this pandemic season.
Meanwhile, as many as 3.50 lakh sequences of the Covid-19 virus and its variants have thus far been shared among scientists around the world. This is perhaps the largest ever exercise on a virus.