Canadian experts release first molecular images of B.1.1.7 variant of Covid-19
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New Delhi: The B.1.1.7 variant, first reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) in mid-December last year, has an unusually large number of mutations. “The pictures, taken at near-atomic resolution, provide critical insight as to why the B.1.1.7 variant - first detected in the UK and now accounting for a growing number of cases across Canada - is more infectious,” the University of British Columbia (UBC) said in a statement. The research team, led by Dr Sriram Subramaniam, professor in UBC faculty of medicine’s department of biochemistry and molecular biology, found of “particular interest” a mutation known as N501Y located on the coronavirus’s spike protein, which is what it uses to attach itself to human cells that it infects.
“The images we captured provide the first structural glimpse of the N501Y mutant and show that the changes resulting from the mutation are localised. The N501Y mutation is the only mutation in the B.1.1.7 variant that is located on the portion of the spike protein that binds to the human ACE2 receptor, which is the enzyme on the surface of our cells that serves as the entry gate for Sars-CoV-2,” he said.
