Following up on general thoughts on antigenic drift of #COVID19 from this weekend, I wanted to discuss what we know about the new variant of SARS-CoV-2 thats emerged in the UK. 1/17https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1340409968818671616 …
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Replying to @trvrb
I get your point about epistasis of these key variants in B.1.1.7. Do you think the N501Y alone could account for the heightened transmission?
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Replying to @EricTopol
The main reason I'd think it's not N501Y alone is that this AA change is due to a single nuc change A23063T. This mutation should be repeatedly across global infections. I'd think you'd need some epistatic effect to enable this mutation. Otherwise it should have spread earlier.
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Replying to @trvrb
Makes sense. Thanks, Trevor. And for another excellent thread
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Replying to @EricTopol
This logic of epistasis and "two-step" changes has a rich history in pop gen. The basic idea is that populations will exhaust all the easy "one-step" changes quickly and so pace of evolution will be partly determined by rarer epistatic combinations. This is mostly theory however.
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Replying to @K_G_Andersen @trvrb and
Practically speaking, doesn’t all this mean speed of vaccine rollout—globally—is of great importance?
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Replying to @zeynep @K_G_Andersen and
Yes. If we're worried about this and further mutations the best thing we can do is to vaccinate as widely and as quickly as possible, (while mitigating spread in the interim).
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I mean not for this one—meaning not this strain—but the worries about strains and convergent evolution etc. going forward.
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