Sars-Cov-2 lab variant bound 600 times more successfully to human cells than the original strain

The naturally selected mutations S477N, E484K, and N501Y of the Spike protein RBD, which show higher infectivity, were selected by yeast surface display affinity maturation already in the first round, giving rise to the South-African, E484K, N501Y, and British variants that bind ACE2 13 and 3.5-fold tighter than RBD-WT.  More...