Evaluation of Immune Evasive and Infectivity Potential of Viral Molecular Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 Emerging Variants
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32350/sir.102.03Keywords:
hACE2, immune evasion, infectivity potential, SARS-CoV-2, spike protein, variants of concern (VOCs)Abstract
In December 2019, the world was shocked by a new and highly infectious pathogen named SARS-CoV-2 which caused a very high number of cases and deaths, worldwide. Several vaccines were introduced to tackle the virus but complications arose when its different variants were identified. World Health Organization (WHO) has classified them as “Variants of Concern” and “Variants of Interest”. VOCs include Alpha (B.1.17), Beta (B.1.351), Gamma (P.1), Delta (B.1.617), and Omicron (BA.1, BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5). The primary focus of this study was the mutations reported in the spike protein of these VOCs and their role in immune evasion and infectivity potential of the virus. This study employed an in silico approach to provide the detailed structure of the spike protein of all variants. The immune threshold of the VOCs and Wuhan-ref was compared. Further, differences in the interaction of the spike glycoprotein of the variants and Wuhan-ref with the hACE2 receptor were analyzed to show variations in the spike protein of different variants. The findings indicate that as the number of mutations increased in the emerging variants, so did their infectivity potential. Furthermore, when different epitopes were examined for immune evasion, it was found that molecular evolution has made them more immune evasive but less severe than the Wuhan-ref.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Nayyer Saddique, Ishaq N. Khan, Jalal Ahmed, Hafsah Muhammad, Muhammad Ibrahim Rashid
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