B.1.617 is the name
Find more information on the lineage at cov-lineages.org/lineages/linea…
This lineage is defined by 15 genetic variants including 6 Spike protein variants.
Two variants of these 6 (E484Q and L452R) are involved in immune escape as well as increased infectivity. More about these variants and immune escape can be found at ESC clingen.igib.res.in/esc
This lineage is also now found in a number of countries including UK, USA, Australia, Singapore and Germany
See thread by @bani_jolly on the Phylogenetic context of the genomes with E484q + L452R
A recent preprint biorxiv.org/content/10.110… suggests L452R could
1. Bind with better affinity to receptor
2. Increase viral replication
3. Escape presentation of an immunodominant epitope by HLA-A*24:02 - making it one of the few variants which can escape T cell immunity.
The Allele Frequencies for HLA-A*24:02 from the #IndiGen dataset of whole genomes is modest at 13.9%
The highest frequencies for this allele is ~80% in Taiwan and East Asia.
More about the IndiGen programme of @CSIR_IND is at indigen.igib.in
UK finds more cases of variant B.1.617 linked to severe second wave in India ft.com/content/a55eb7…
#B1617
B.1.617 becomes one of the fastest growing lineages in the UK
A simplified overview of B.1.617 by @Samatha_Mathew
genomeconnect.blogspot.com/2021/04/ever-e…
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