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A genetic mutation can make the new coronavirus “much more infectious,” a team of scientists said Friday.
According to researchers with the Scripps Research Institute, lab experiments have shown that the mutation increased the number of functional spikes on the surface of the virus.
Those spikes, which give the coronavirus it’s crown-like appearance, allow the virus to bind and infect cells.
Hyeryun Choe, a virologist and the senior author of the study, said in a statement that, “the number — or density — of functional spikes on the virus is four or five times greater due to this mutation,” which is called D614G.
The spikes enable the virus to latch onto target cell receptors, called ACE2. The mutation provides greater flexibility to the spike’s “backbone,” according to co-author Michael Farzan, making it less likely to fall apart prematurely.
For weeks scientists have been wondering about the mutation, which could explain the high rate of infections in the U.S. and Latin America.
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“The SARS-CoV-2 variant that circulated in the earliest regional outbreaks lacked the D614G mutation now dominating in much of the world,” according to the study.
Farzan, the co-chairman of Scripps Research’s department of immunology and microbiology, said that their findings show that the mutation didn’t happen because of the so-called “founder effect” — when a small number of variants spread to a wide population, by chance.
“There have been at least a dozen scientific papers talking about the predominance of this mutation,” Farzan said. “Are we just seeing a ‘founder effect?’ Our data nails it. It is not the founder effect.”
The research was performed using harmless viruses, which were engineered to produce key proteins. Additional studies are required to verify if the changes will also “translate to increased transmissibility in the real world.”
On Friday, World Health Organization chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan said that coronavirus mutations seen so far should not “alter the efficacy of a vaccine.”
The study, which is currently undergoing peer review, will be posted in the pre-print site bioRxiv, according to The Scripps Research Institute.
New York Daily News