Importance of E484K and N501Y mutations in SARS-CoV-2 for genomic surveillance: rapid detection by restriction enzyme analysis

  1. Rossana C Jaspe
  2. Yoneira Sulbaran
  3. Carmen L Loureiro
  4. Pierina D’Angelo
  5. Lieska Rodríguez
  6. Domingo J Garzaro
  7. Héctor R Rangel
  8. Flor H Pujol

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Abstract

Introduction

Variants of Concern of SARS-CoV-2 (VOCs), the new coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, have emerged in several countries. Two mutations in the gene coding for the Spike protein of the viral genome are particularly important and associated with some of these variants: E484K and N501Y. Restriction enzyme analysis is proposed as a rapid method to detect these two mutations.

Methodology

A search on GISAID was performed in April 2021 to detect the frequency of these two mutations in the sequence available and their association with other lineages. A small amplicon from the Spike gene was digested with two enzymes: HpyAV, which allows detecting E484K mutation, and MseI, for detecting the N501Y one.

Results

The mutations E484K and N501Y, associated with VOCs, have emerged in several other lineages, particularly E484K. A 100% correlation was observed with sequencing results.

Conclusions

The proposed methodology, which allows screening a great number of samples, will probably help to provide more information on the prevalence and epidemiology of these mutations worldwide, to select the candidates for whole-genome sequencing.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.04.21256650: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

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    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.04.21256650v1 on medRxiv