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The New Omicron Coronavirus Variant Is ‘Highly Mutated’ What Does This Mean?

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What is known now about about the mutations in the omicron variant and what will we find out over the coming weeks?
The omicron variant of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus has been described as “highly mutated” by numerous publications over the past few days. But what does this actually mean and does a virus having more mutations mean we should automatically be more concerned about it? Firstly, it is important to note that I am not a virologist, I am a cancer biologist and one of the cornerstones of cancer biology and my research currently, is mutations. Simply, cancer is caused by genetic mutations, errors in human DNA which mean that the proteins made from our DNA blueprint come out mangled and dysfunctional, hyperactive or often just don’t get made at all, sending our normally well-regulated and controlled cells into a spin. Cancer evolves, often by acquiring more mutations, some which may help it grow, resist drugs or even invade other tissues. Viruses, along with other types of microorganisms like bacteria and fungi evolve after gaining mutations too and we know that with the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, several ‘variants’ with different mutations have forked off the original, gaining mutations which make them more transmissible, or deadly. But not all mutations are created equally. In cancer these range from loss of entire huge chunks of DNA called chromosomes meaning that the instructions of hundreds or thousands of genes are lost, to single-base substitutions where the tiniest building block of DNA (a base) is simply the wrong one out of the four that make up our whole genetic code. In cancer, a lot of mutations seem to do nothing at all. They can be in what are called “non-coding” regions of DNA, which don’t get made into proteins or if the protein is made, their effect on the shape and function of the protein can be too minimal to actually cause any problems. We call them “passenger” mutations and DNA mutations which actually do something – “drivers.” So back to the new omicron variant of SARS-CoV2, which is an RNA virus, so uses a different type of genetic material to encode its genome than in humans. Scientists have already sequenced the omicron variant and have come up with lots of information about how this sequence is different from that of other SARS-CoV2 variants. In particular, scientists are concerned about spike protein mutations – the protein which the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus uses to gain access into our cells, the very protein that all of the approved Covid-19 vaccines are designed to train our immune systems on. As the photo above shows (Credit: nference), the omicron variant has a lot more mutations in the spike protein than any other variant described before, including delta, the current dominant variant in many parts of the world, including North America and Europe. What are these combinations of letters and numbers I keep seeing to describe mutations? N969K, D796Y, N440K…? You may have seen these strange code-like combinations of numbers and letters used to describe mutations when people are talking about the omicron variant. The letters are a code for which amino acid, building blocks for protein, a piece of genetic code tells the cell to make and the number sandwiched between them is the location in the gene where that switch has taken place. So, for example, N440K, a mutation in the spike protein of the omicron variant describes how a mutation at position 440 has changed amino acid N (Asparagine – the abbreviations are not always logical…) to a K, or Lysine. The name does not give any information other than the location and what the switch is. What are the computer predictions saying right now about the mutations? Computer predictions of what these mutations might do are a little startling, predicting potential increase in transmission and immune evasion – meaning that vaccines and treatments such as monoclonal antibodies might be less effective against omicron than they have been found to be against other variants.

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