In Mutant Variants, Has the Coronavirus Shown Its Best Tricks

 BY KATE KELLAND AND Julie Steenhuysen

LONDON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - The rapid rise in several parts of the planet of deadly, more infectious coronavirus variants that share new mutations is leading scientists to ask a critical question - has the SARS-CoV-2 virus shown its best cards?

New variants first detected in such far-flung countries as Brazil, South Africa, and Britain cropped up spontaneously within a couple of months late last year. All three share several equivalent mutations within the important spike region of the virus wont to enter and infect cells.

These include the E484k mutation, nicknamed "Eek" by some scientists for its apparent ability to evade innate immunity from previous COVID-19 infection and to scale back the protection offered by current vaccines - all of which target the spike protein.

The appearance of comparable mutations, independent of 1 another, arising in several parts of the world shows the coronavirus is undergoing "convergent evolution," consistent with a dozen scientists interviewed by Reuters.

Although it'll still mutate, immunologists and virologists said they think this coronavirus features a fixed number of moves in its arsenal.

The long-term impact on the virus' survival, and whether a limit on the number of mutations makes it less dangerous, remains to be seen.

"It is plausible that this virus features a relatively limited number of antibody escape mutations it can make before it's played all of its cards, so to talk," said Shane Crotty, a virologist at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in San Diego.

That could enable drugmakers to remain on top of the virus as they develop booster vaccines directly targeting current variants, while governments struggle to tame an epidemic that has killed nearly 3 million people.

The idea that the virus could have a limited number of mutations has been circulating among experts since early February and gathered momentum with the posting of a paper showing the spontaneous appearance of seven variants within us, beat an equivalent region of the spike protein.

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EVOLUTION, IN REAL TIME

The process of various species independently evolving equivalent traits that improve survival odds is central to evolutionary biology. The vast scope of the coronavirus pandemic - with 127.3 million infections globally - allows scientists to watch it in real-time.

"If you wanted to kind of writing a touch textbook about viral evolution, it's happening immediately," Dr. Francis Collins, a geneticist, and director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health said in an interview.

Scientists saw the method on a smaller scale in 2018 as a dangerous H7N9 bird flu virus in China seemed to begin adapting to human hosts. But no pathogen has evolved under such global scrutiny as SARS-CoV-2.

Wendy Barclay, a virologist and professor at Imperial College London and a member of a scientific advisory panel to the united kingdom government, said she is struck by the "amazing amount of convergent evolution we're seeing" with SARS-CoV-2.

 "There are these infamous mutations - E484K, N501Y, and K417N - which all three variants of concern are accumulating. That, added together, is extremely strong biology that this is often the simplest version of this virus within the given moment," Barclay said.

 it isn't that this coronavirus is particularly clever, scientists said. whenever it infects people it makes copies of itself, and with each copy, it can make mistakes. While some mistakes are insignificant one-offs, those that give the coronavirus a survival advantage tend to persist.

"If it keeps happening over and once again, it must be providing some real growth advantage to the present virus," Collins said.

Some specialists believe the virus may have a limited number of mutations it can sustain before compromising its fitness - or changing such a lot it's not an equivalent virus.

"I don't think it's getting to reinvent itself with extra teeth," said Ian Jones, a professor of virology at Britain's University of Reading.

"If it had a vast number of tricks...we would see a vast number of mutants, but we do not,” said Michel Nussenzweig, an immunologist at Rockefeller University in ny.

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM

Scientists remain cautious, however, and say predicting how an epidemic will mutate is challenging. If there are limits on how the coronavirus can evolve, that might simplify things for vaccine developers.

Novavax Inc is adapting its vaccine to focus on the South African variant that in lab tests seemed to render current vaccines less effective. Chief Executive Stan Erck said the virus can only change such a lot and still bind to human hosts and hopes the vaccine will "cover the overwhelming majority of strains that are circulating."

If not, Novavax can continue matching its vaccine to new variants, he said.

Researchers are tracking the variants through data-sharing platforms like the worldwide Initiative on Sharing Avian Flu Data, which houses an enormous trove of coronavirus genomes.

Scientists recently identified seven U.S. coronavirus variants with mutations all occurring within the same location during a key portion of the virus, offering more evidence of convergent evolution.

Other teams are conducting experiments that expose the virus to antibodies to force it to mutate. In many cases, equivalent mutations, including the infamous E484K, appeared.

Such evidence adds to cautious optimism that mutations appear to share many equivalent traits.

But the planet must continue tracking changes within the virus, experts said, and choke off its ability to mutate by reducing transmission through vaccinations and measures that limit its spread.

"It's shown a really strong set of opening moves," Vaughn Cooper, an evolutionary biology specialist at the University of Pittsburgh School of drugs, said of this coronavirus. "We do not know what the top game goes to seem like."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Josephine Mason and Bill Berkrot)

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