The impact of non-lineage defining mutations in the structural stability for variants of concern of SARS-CoV-2

Motivation The identification of the most important mutations, that lead to a structural and functional change in a highly transmissible virus variants, is essential to understand the impacts and the possible chances of vaccine and antibody escape. Strategies to rapidly associate mutations to functional and conformational properties are needed to rapidly analyze mutations in proteins and their impacts in antibodies and human binding proteins.

Results Comparative analysis showed the main structural characteristics of the essential mutations found for each variant of concern in relation to the reference proteins. The paper presented a series of methodologies to track and associate conformational changes and the impacts promoted by the mutations.