Another sublineage of great concern is expanding in India and has also made landfall in the US and Europe (Austria): BJ.1
Numbers are still very low, but the newly acquired mutations are really a nasty combination in critical places.
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The lineage was noticed already a month ago, you can follow the details and expansion in this pango-designation issue:
github.com/cov-lineages/p…
Thanks to all the colleagues keeping such good track of the variant-zoo!
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BJ.1 is a BA.2 sublineage with 14 additional mutations in spike (plus others). What is immediately obvious is, that the many new mutations cluster densly in the receptor binding domain and the NTD antibody binding “supersite”.
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Number and density of mutations on the RBD clearly exceeds BA.2.75. And yes, also R346T (known from BA.1.1, BA.4.6, BF.7, BA.2.75.2 and others) is in the package.
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In the N-terminal domain the mutations in detail are (side view): V83A, Y144del, H146Q, Q183E, V213E
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Mutations in the receptor binding domain are (top view): G339H, R346T, L368I, V445P, G446S, V483A, F490V In addition, mutations G798D, S1003I are found.
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This package of mutations makes further significant immune evasion highly likely. One can only hope it comes at significant cost for the virus regarding infectivity.
Let's keep a close look at this potential concern, for that continuous sequencing surveillance is pivotal.
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