The Latest COVID Variants Have a Surprising Feature in Common
Over and over again, genetic mutations are preventing a protein once thought to be key to the virus’s success from being expressed.
The coronavirus genome is 30,000 letters long, encoding more than two dozen different proteins that enable the virus to hijack our cells. Of these, spike gets all the glory and infamy; it is the protein targeted by vaccines, and it is the protein that keeps shape-shifting in new variants. But lately, something strange has been happening with another protein called ORF8, once thought to be a crucial player. The virus keeps losing ORF8—over and over again.
It happened first in Alpha. Then again more recently with the Omicron subvariant BA.5, and now again with the ascendant XBB.1.16, also known as . In a few weeks’ time, more , only to have it disappear repeatedly.
