ANALYSIS OF SPIKE PROTEIN MUTATIONS OF SARS-CoV-2 OMICRON VARIANTS

Abstract

Pairwise S sequence alignment of each Omicron variant with the original variant (QIC53213), 51 mutations were identified on the spike protein S. In which, 15 mutations are common on RBD including G339D, S371L, S373P, S375F, K417N, N440K, G446S, S477N, T478K, E484A, Q493R, G496S, Q498R, N501Y and Y505H with probability from 59.26 to 66.67%. Mutations on RBD increased the BFE binding free energy between RBD and ACE2 making the Omicron variant 10 times more infectious than the original variant. Mutations in the S spike protein, such as K417N, E484A, N501Y, D614G and Y505H make the Omicron variants less resistant to vaccines and 10 to 50% less virulent than the Delta variant