Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Feb 23;28(2):taab011.
doi: 10.1093/jtm/taab011.

Quantifying the transmission advantage associated with N501Y substitution of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK: an early data-driven analysis

Shi Zhao  1   2 , Jingzhi Lou  1 , Lirong Cao  1 , Hong Zheng  1 , Marc K C Chong  1   2 , Zigui Chen  3 , Renee W Y Chan  4 , Benny C Y Zee  1   2 , Paul K S Chan  3 , Maggie H Wang  1   2
Affiliations

Quantifying the transmission advantage associated with N501Y substitution of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK: an early data-driven analysis

Shi Zhao et al. J Travel Med. .

Abstract

The emerging N501Y mutation in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which becomes prevalent in the UK rapidly, is one of the major challenges of COVID-19 control. To explore the transmission advantage, we estimate that the N501Y substitution increases the infectivity by 52% (95% confidence interval: 46, 58) in terms of the reproduction number.

Keywords: B.1.1.7 lineage; COVID-19; mutation; reproduction number; statistical modelling; transmission advantage.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The daily number of COVID-19 cases (panel A), the reconstructed reproduction number (Rt, panel B) and proportion of the Y on the 501th codon of the S protein (panel C). Panel A shows the daily number of COVID-19 time series in the UK. Panel B shows the estimated reproduction numbers of Y (in orange) and N (in purple). The dots are the estimates, and bars are the 95% confidence intervals. Panel C shows the observed (dots) and fitted (curve) proportion of the Y on the 501th codon of the S protein
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Tang JW, Tambyah PA, Hui DSC. Emergence of a new sars-cov-2 variant in the UK. J Infect. doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.12.024. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cori A, Ferguson NM, Fraser C, Cauchemez S. A new framework and software to estimate time-varying reproduction numbers during epidemics. Am J Epidemiol 2013; 178:1505–12. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Leung K, Shum MH, Leung GM et al. Early transmissibility assessment of the n501y mutant strains of sars-cov-2 in the United Kingdom, October to November 2020. Eurosurveillance 2021; 26:2002106. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Teruel N, Maihot O, Najmanovich RJ. Modelling conformational state dynamics and its role on infection for sars-cov-2 spike protein variants. bioRxiv 2020; 2020.12.16.423118. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yurkovetskiy L, Wang X, Pascal KE et al. Structural and functional analysis of the d614g sars-cov-2 spike protein variant. Cell 2020; 183:739–51.e8. - PMC - PubMed