SARS-CoV-2 spike-protein D614G mutation increases virion spike density and infectivity

By Lizhou Zhang, C. B. Jackson, H. Mou, Amrita Ojha, Haiyong Peng, Brian D. Quinlan, E. Rangarajan, Andi Pan, Abigail Vanderheiden, M. Suthar and 5 more. Nature Communications, 2020

855 citations recorded by the source corpus.

SARS-CoV-2 variants with spike (S)-protein D614G mutations now predominate globally. We therefore compare the properties of the mutated S protein (SG614) with the original (SD614). We report here pseudoviruses carrying SG614 enter ACE2-expressing cells more efficiently than those with SD614. This increased entry correlates with less S1-domain shedding and higher S-protein incorporation into the virion. Similar results are obtained with virus-like particles produced with SARS-CoV-2 M, N, E, and S proteins. However, D614G does not alter S-protein binding to ACE2 or neutralization sensitivity of pseudoviruses. Thus, D614G may increase infectivity by assembling more functional S protein into the virion. SARS-CoV-2 variants with spike (S)-protein D614G mutations currently predominate globally. Here, Zhang et al. hypothesize that D614G variant may increase infectivity by increasing S protein abundance on the virion since pseudoviruses carrying S-G614 incorporate higher amounts of S protein and enter cells more efficiently than those carrying S-D614.

Subfields: Animal Science and Zoology, Infectious Diseases

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e7da1c2648e50e1552f178ce09f898bbf4d2fbbe