• Sinae Kim, Jong Ho Lee, Siyoung Lee, Saerok Shim, Tam T Nguyen, Jihyeong Hwang, Heijun Kim, Yeo-Ok Choi, Jaewoo Hong, Suyoung Bae, Hyunjhung Jhun, Hokee Yum, Youngmin Lee, Edward D Chan, Liping Yu, Tania Azam, Yong-Dae Kim, Su Cheong Yeom, Kwang Ha Yoo, Lin-Woo Kang, Kyeong-Cheol Shin, and Soohyun Kim.
• Laboratory of Cytokine Immunology, Department of Biomedical Science and Technology, Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Korea.
• Immune Netw. 2020 Oct 1; 20 (5): e41.

AbstractSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The viral genome encodes twelve genes for viral replication and infection. The third open reading frame is the spike (S) gene that encodes for the spike glycoprotein interacting with specific cell surface receptor - angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) - on the host cell membrane. Most recent studies identified a single point mutation in S gene. A single point mutation in S gene leading to an amino acid substitution at codon 614 from an aspartic acid 614 into glycine (D614G) resulted in greater infectivity compared to the wild type SARS-CoV2. We were interested in investigating the mutation region of S gene of SARS-CoV2 from Korean COVID-19 patients. New mutation sites were found in the critical receptor binding domain (RBD) of S gene, which is adjacent to the aforementioned D614G mutation residue. This specific sequence data demonstrated the active progression of SARS-CoV2 by mutations in the RBD of S gene. The sequence information of new mutations is critical to the development of recombinant SARS-CoV2 spike antigens, which may be required to improve and advance the strategy against a wide range of possible SARS-CoV2 mutations.Copyright © 2020. The Korean Association of Immunologists.

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