Unknown Mutation of COVID-19 Discovered In Brno Laboratory

Elisabeth Pharmacon Laboratory in Brno recently discovered a new COVID-19 mutation. “Fortunately, the mutation is in a position where it should not affect the binding of antibodies or cellular receptors,” said the director of the laboratory, Omar Šerý. Photo Credit: Freepik / Illustrative Photo.

Brno, Mar 30 (BD) – A new COVID-19 mutation was recently detected by the Elisabeth Pharmacon laboratory in Brno-Židenice, a well-known COVID-19 testing location. The new mutation is not thought to affect the binding of antibodies in an infected body, according to the director of the laboratory, Omar Šerý. So far, there is no information on whether the currently available vaccines work on the new mutation. 

Šerý announced the new discovery on Twitter, saying “Thanks to the sequencing of samples from patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, our laboratory has discovered a hitherto undescribed mutation of the Spike protein – the mutation is marked with black dots on the model in the picture. Fortunately, the mutation is in a position where it should not affect the binding of antibodies or cellular receptors.” 

Elisabeth Pharmacon laboratory regularly sequences DNA samples from patients infected with COVID-19. At the end of February, the laboratory was able to detect the so-called South African variant of coronavirus in a Brno kindergartens. COVID-19 mutations were identified and began spreading shortly after the original virus was detected, but many of them do not differ enough from the original to affect the contagion or mortality rate. The British and South African variants have been detected in the Czech Republic so far. The former is more infectious, while the latter reduces the effect of coronavirus vaccines.