Getting To Know The 'smart' Mutation Of The Corona N439K Virus Can Avoid Antibodies

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

JAKARTA - The SARS-CoV-2 virus as the culprit of COVID-19 has never stopped mutating. After B117 from England, B1351 from South Africa, and P1 from Brazil, now we are again faced with the N439K.

For information, the N439K mutation is not new. The N439K was first reported to have appeared in Scotland in mid-March 2020. The N439K was detected entering Indonesia in November 2020. And until now, it has spread in more than 35 countries.

The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has conducted an analysis of the N439K. Said the Head of the Laboratory of Applied Genetic Engineering and Design Protein LIPI, Dr.rer.nat. Wien Kusharyoto, the N439K mutation can avoid antibodies.

"The mutation of N439K can also result in the virus being able to avoid several virus-neutralizing antibodies that are formed based on the Wuhan variant," Wien said as quoted by Antara, Friday, March 26.

The N439K mutation is located inside the Receptor Binding Motifs (RBM). RBM is part of the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) of the immunodominant SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein and is the main target of virus neutralizing antibodies that are formed either due to viral infection or due to injection with the vaccine.

According to him, there are indications that the mutation increases the affinity or the ability to bind the virus to the ACE-2 receptor in humans, and there is a slight increase in the content of the virus when infected by the variant with the mutation, but does not cause the severity of the disease.

Previously, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said one of the characteristics possessed by the new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, N439K, is that it disappears faster. The Task Force for the Indonesian Doctors Association (Satgas IDI) said there had been 48 cases of N439K in Indonesia.