Predicting Mutational Effects on Receptor Binding of the Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Variants.

ABSTRACT: The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has cost millions of lives and tremendous social/financial loss. The virus continues to evolve and mutate. In particular, the recently emerged "UK", "South Africa", and Delta variants show higher infectivity and spreading speed. Thus, the relationship between the mutations of certain amino acids and the spreading speed of the virus is a problem of great importance. In this respect, understanding the mutational mechanism is crucial for surveillance and prediction of future mutations as well as antibody/vaccine development. In this work, we used a coarse-grained model (that was used previously in predicting the importance of mutations of N501) to calculate the free energy change of various types of single-site or combined-site mutations. This was done for th

SUBMITTER: Bai C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8525340 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature