Comparative Analysis and Identification of Spike Mutations in Iranian Covid-19 Samples From the First Three Waves of Disease Publisher



Shoaei P¹ ; Ranjbar M² ; Tokhanbigli S³ ; Ataei B³ ; Alibakhshi A⁴ ; Haghjooy Javanmard S⁵ ; Ahangarzadeh S³
Source: Advanced Biomedical Research Published:2023

Abstract

Background: The spike surface glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 is the essential protein in virus attachment to the target cell and cell entrance. As this protein contains immunodominant epitopes and is the main target for immune recognition, it is the critical target for vaccine and therapeutics development. In the current research, we analyzed the variability and mutations of the spike glycoprotein isolated from 72 COVID-19-positive patients from Iran's first three waves of disease. Materials and Methods: The RNA was extracted from nasopharyngeal samples of confirmed COVID-19 cases and served as a template for cDNA synthesis and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. The reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction products of each sample were assembled and sequenced. Results: After analysis of 72 sequences, we obtained 46 single nucleotide polymorphisms, including 23 that produce amino acid changes. Our analysis showed that the most frequent mutation was the D614G (in the samples of the second and third waves). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that developing effective vaccines requires identifying the predominant variants of SARS-CoV-2 in each community. © 2023 Medknow. All rights reserved.