Emma B. Hodcroft1
1Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Please cite and link back to this site if you use this resource - Thank you!
This repository is intended to provide an overview (not necessarily complete) of SARS-CoV-2 mutations that are of interest. It should be noted that these mutations are primarily of interest due to spread in Europe: this is simply a reflection that the primary maintainer/author (Emma Hodcroft) works mostly with European data.
The code used to generate these tables, graphs, and the sequences related to that mutation can be found in this repository.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic & research surrounding it is ongoing.
I will make every effort to try to keep this repository up-to-date, but readers should take care to double-check that the information is the latest available.
I welcome PR requests to this repository providing new links and information!
The more detail you can include in a pull request (PR) the faster I'll be able to review it.
If possible, provide a PR that adds/edits the appropriate links/etc, and I can merge it faster - if you can't do that, making an issue is fine, but I might be slower incorporating it.
Overview of all mutation tables & graphs
Overview of all mutation country plots
Clusters/mutations are listed below by the location of a mutation in the spike protein (S:
) - the letter after :
indicates the original amino-acid, the number the position in the spike protein, and the last letter, the 'new' amino-acid.
As S:N501
has multiple amino-acid mutations, there is no second letter.
20A.EU1 and 20A.EU2, because of their prominence, have been given 'subclade' names.
The mutation is listed in parentheses after the name.
- 20A.EU1 (S:A222V)
- 20A.EU2 (S:S477N)
- S:N501
- S:E484
- S:L452R
- S:H69-
- S:N439K
- S:Y453F
- S:S98F
- S:D80Y
- S:A626S
- S:V1122L
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated 20A.EU1 Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:A222V
;ORF10:V30L
;N:A220V
orORF14:L67F
(overlapping reading frame withN
) - Synonymous:
T445C
,C6286T
,C26801G
- Nonsynonymous:
S:A222V
S:A222V
is a mutation in the non-terminal domain (NTD), which is not known to play a direct role in receptor binding or membrane fusion- Associated with a cluster that initially expanded in Spain and spread widely across Europe via holiday travel (see Hodcroft et al preprint)
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated 20A.EU2 Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Note this cluster is only the European appearance of S:477N
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:S477N
;N:M234I
,A376T
;ORF1b:A176S
,V767L
,K1141R
,E1184D
- Synonymous:
C4543T
,G5629T
,C11497T
,T26876C
- Nonsynonymous:
S:S477N
- Mutation is in the receptor binding domain (RDB), important to ACE2 binding and antibody recognition
- Has arisen independently in Australia and was responsible for much of the summer 2020 outbreak (Link to Nextstrain build)
- May slightly increase ACE2 binding: Chen et al. JMB; see also Bloom Lab ACE2 binding website
- May confer resistance to multiple antibodies: (Gaebler et al. bioRxiv, Liu et al. bioRxiv)
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:N501 Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Has appeared multiple times independently: each can be associated with different accompanying mutations
- Amino-acid changes are
N501Y
(nucleotide mutationA23063T
),N501T
(nucleotide mutationA23064C
), andN501S
(nucleotide mutationA23064G
)
S:N501
- Mutation is in the receptor binding domain (RDB), important to ACE2 binding and antibody recognition
- N501Y is associated with recently reported 'new variants' in the UK and South Africa:
- '20B/501Y.V1' (B.1.1.7) was announced in the South East of England on 14 Dec 2020 (COG-UK Report, Rambaut et al., PHE report, PHE Technical Report 2, PHE Technical Report 3)
- This particular variant is associated with multiple mutations in Spike, including:
N501Y
, a deletion at 69/70 (as seen inS:N439K
&S:Y453F
) (Kemp et al. bioRxiv (21 Dec)),Y144
deletion, andP681H
(adjacent to the furin cleavage site). - There is also a notable truncation of
ORF8
, withQ27*
(becomes a stop codon) (deletion ofORF8
was previously associated with reduced clinical severity (Young et al. Lancet)), and mutations inN
:N:D3L
andS235F
.
- This particular variant is associated with multiple mutations in Spike, including:
- '20C/501Y.V2' (B.1.351) is found in South Africa and was also announced in December 2020 (Tegally et al., medRxiv)
- This variant is associated with multiple mutations in Spike, including:
N501Y
,K417N
, andD80A
. - There is also an
N
mutation:T205I
. - It does not have the deletion at 69/70.
- This variant is associated with multiple mutations in Spike, including:
- '20B/501Y.V1' (B.1.1.7) was announced in the South East of England on 14 Dec 2020 (COG-UK Report, Rambaut et al., PHE report, PHE Technical Report 2, PHE Technical Report 3)
- Smaller clusters also seen in Wales, USA, & Australia
- May be associated with adaptation to rodents and mustelids:
N501T
in ferrets (Richard et al. Nature Comm.) and mink (Welkers et al. Virus Evolution);N501Y
in mice (Gu et al. Science)- Some have speculated of risk of a persistent reservoir in wild rodents/mustelids
- May increase ACE2 binding Bloom Lab ACE2 binding website - in particular it is predicted to do this by increasing the time spent in the 'open' conformation (Teruel et al., bioRxiv)
N501Y
was found in longitudinally-collected samples from an immunocompromised patient (Choi et al. NEJM)- In one study, sera from previously infected patients neutralised patients with
S:501N
andS:501Y
equally (Xie et al., bioRxiv)
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:E484 Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
-
Defining mutations:
- Has appeared multiple times independently: each can be associated with different accompanying mutations
-
S:E484
- Associated with the 501Y.V2 variant that arose in South Africa in the winter of 2020(Tegally et al., medRxiv) -- Focal
S.E484
build filtered & zoomed to 501Y.V2 - Associated with the 501Y.V3 variant identified originally in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, which also carries
S:N501Y
(like 501Y.V2) (Naveca et al., Virological, Faria et al., Virological) -- FocalS.E484
build filtered & zoomed to 501Y.V3 - Also found in another variant originating in Brazil, but which does not carry
S:N501Y
(de Vasconcelos et al., medRxiv) -- FocalS.E484
build filtered & zoomed to 20B/S.484K - Mutations at S:E484 may significantly reduce convalescent serum neutralization (Greaney et al., medRxiv)
- There has been a case of reinfection associated with
S:E484K
: a woman previously infected with a non-S:E484K
variant of SARS-CoV-2 was later reinfected with a virus carrying theS:E484K
mutation (Nonaka et al., PrePrints) - In one study co-incubating SARS-CoV-2 with convalescent plasma, neutralization was completely escaped at day 73 due to an
S:E484K
mutation (Andreano et al., bioRxiv)
- Associated with the 501Y.V2 variant that arose in South Africa in the winter of 2020(Tegally et al., medRxiv) -- Focal
-
Little else is known about this mutation. Please let me know if you have more information!
More information coming soon!
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:L452R Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:S13I
,W152C
,L452R
;ORF1a:I4205V
;ORF1b:D1183Y
- Synonymous:
C2395T
,T2597C
,T24349C
,G27890T
,A28272T
- Nonsynonymous:
S:L452R
S:L452R
was first identified in California (California Dept of Public Health) and appears to have increased in frequency (Chiu C, Twitter). If these links can be replaced with more formal analyses, please submit a PR doing so!- In a study co-incubating psueotyped virus with SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins and monocolonal antibodies, viruses with
S:L452R
mutations escaped neutralization by monoclonal antibodies SARS2-01, SARS-02, and SARS2-32 and some convalescent sera. Additionally, this study found modest increase in infectivity as measured by soluble mACE2 (Liu et al., bioRxiv)
Figure made via GISAID
Note this figure shows both the 69 & 70 deletion.
Dedicated S:H69- Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:H69-
(nucleotides:C21767-, A21768-, T21769-
)
- Nonsynonymous:
S:H69-
- This deletion has arisen at 3 times in 'recognised clusters': in the
S:Y453F
,S:N439K
, andS:N501Y
clusters (Kemp et al. bioRxiv (21 Dec)); and has additionally arisen more times outside of recognised clusters. - May alter the recognition by antibodies, possibly impacting some antibody-therapy treatments, or immunity (Kemp et al. medRxiv (19 Dec)).
- In particular, the deletion is predicted structurally to 'tuck in' the Spike N-terminal domain (Kemp et al. bioRxiv (21 Dec))
- In one study, was identified as a 'recurrent deletion region' (found multiple times in public sequences), but did not impact the 2 monoclonal antibodies tested (McCarthey et al., bioRxiv)
- This deletion has arisen at 3 times in 'recognised clusters': in the
Important: Currently this build detects only the deletion at position 69 in spike, as due to alignment/calling differences, detecting the deletion at position 70 is less reliable. However, they seem to be highly associated.
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:N439K Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:N439K
;ORF1a:I2501T
- Synonymous:
C8047T
- Nonsynonymous:
S:N439K
- Mutation is in the receptor binding domain (RDB), important to ACE2 binding and antibody recognition
- About 2/3 of the sequences in the cluster have deletions at Spike amino-acid positions 69/70 (Nextstrain build with deletions in cluster highlighted)
- Has emerged twice independently in Europe, but was exclusive to Scotland in the first wave and went extinct: Thompson et al. bioRxiv
- May increase ACE2 binding: Thompson et al. bioRxiv & Chen et al., JMB; see also Bloom Lab ACE2 binding website
- Confers resistance to one of the two antibodies in the Regeneron cocktail (REGN10987); see Starr et al. bioRxiv and Thompson et al. bioRxiv.
- May confer resistance to antibodies: C135 (Weisblum et al. eLife, Barnes et al. Nature); a panel of antibodies (Thompson et al. bioRxiv)
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:Y453F Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Has appeared multiple times independently: each can be associated with different accompanying mutations
S:Y453F
- Mutation is in the receptor binding domain (RDB), important to ACE2 binding and antibody recognition
- Associated with the 'cluster 5' 'mink' variant that led to some alarm in Denmark in autumn 2020
- This variant has the following additional spike mutations: 60/70 deletion,
I692V
andM1229I
- This variant has the following additional spike mutations: 60/70 deletion,
- It is has also been seen previously in mink in the Netherlands (example Nextstrain build)
- May be a mink-specific adaptation, increasing binding to mink ACE2: (Rodrigues et al. PloS Comp Bio and Welkers et al. Virus Evolution); and appearing multiple times (van Dorp et al. bioRxiv)
- May also increase ACE2 binding in humans: Bloom Lab ACE2 binding website
- Does confer resistance to an antibody in the Regeneron cocktail: REGN10933 (Baum et al. Science; Starr et al. bioRxiv)
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:S98F Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:S98F
;N:P199L
orORF14:Q46*
(overlapping reading frames);ORF3a:Q38R
,G172R
,V202L
- Synonymous:
C28651T
- Nonsynonymous:
S:S98F
- Mostly found in Belgium and the Netherlands - predominantly Belgium
- Little else is known about this mutation. Please let me know if you have more information!
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:D80Y Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:D80Y
;N:S186Y
orORF14:P33T
(overlapping reading frames),D377Y
;ORF1a:T945I
,T1567I
,Q3346K
,V3475F
,M3862I
;ORF1b:P255T
;ORF7a: R80I
- Synonymous:
G4960T
,C6070T
,C7303T
,C7564T
,C10279T
,C10525T
,C10582T
,C27804T
- Of full list of 18 nucleotide mutations, 15 are mutations to
T
(possibly related to APOBEC-like editing within host, see Simmonds, bioRxiv)
- Nonsynonymous:
S:D80Y
- At the opposite end of the loop 'tucked in' by the 69/70 deletion (hypothetical association). See S:H69- for more detail on the impact of 69/70 deletion.
- Found in at least 10 countries across Europe
- Little else is known about this mutation. Please let me know if you have more information!
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:A626S Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:A626S
(G23438T
) - Synonymous: (none)
- Nonsynonymous:
S:A626S
- Found widely across Europe, in at least 15 countries
- Little else is known about this mutation. Please let me know if you have more information!
Figure made via GISAID
Dedicated S:V1122L Nextstrain build
Table and charts of mutation distribution
- Defining mutations:
- Nonsynonymous:
S:V1122L
(G24926T
) - Synonymous: (none)
- Nonsynonymous:
S:V1122L
- Found primarily in Sweden and northern European countries, including Norway and Denmark
- Little else is known about this mutation. Please let me know if you have more information!
We are grateful to Vercel for sponsoring our web application builds