What does it mean to find mutant strains of the new coronavirus in multiple countries?

In the course of the global scientific community racing against the new crown virus, new challenges are constantly emerging. Recently, India, Malaysia, the Philippines and other countries have successively discovered mutated strains of the new coronavirus. Some of the mutated strains spread 10 times faster than normal strains.
Why is the new coronavirus easy to mutate? What are the effects of mutation on virus transmission and vaccine development? With the emergence of the above news, the people's confusion also arises.
What needs to be understood is that a virus is a very simple organism, generally composed of only two substances: protein shell (capsid) and nucleic acid (DNA or RNA, the new coronavirus is the latter). It does not have an independent life system and can only survive by parasitizing in living cells. When the new coronavirus enters the cell to replicate rapidly, it means that the viral RNA replicates rapidly. Errors are unavoidable in this process, and mutations are prone to occur. The constant mutation can help the virus evade recognition by antibodies.
As part of the virus evolution process, the mutation of the new coronavirus is not a new topic in the scientific community. Taking the four D614G mutant strains discovered in Malaysia this time as an example, as early as early July, a study in the "Cell" magazine discussed the D614G mutant strain, a new coronavirus mutation caused by amino acid changes.
Research pointed out that the 614th amino acid aspartic acid (D) in the spike protein of the new coronavirus is changed to glycine (G). This amino acid change is critical to the infectiousness of the pathogen. Researchers tested the amount of virus in patients with new coronary pneumonia. The results showed that the G strain produced more viruses in the human body than the D strain. The G strain did not bring about a higher hospitalization rate, indicating that it did not cause more serious diseases. But viruses that carry G amino acids are more contagious.
In this regard, Maria Van Kokhoff, technical director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergency Project, once said at a press conference that in February, D614G mutations appeared in the early viral gene sequences found in Europe and other places. Studies have shown 29 % Of the new coronavirus samples have the mutation, but there is currently no evidence that it will cause more serious illness.
Regarding the effect of mutation on virus toxicity, researchers from Yale University and Sydney University once wrote an article in "Nature-Microbiology" that mutation can increase or decrease the toxicity of the virus. The toxicity and transmission mode of the virus are Controlled by multiple genes, multiple mutations are needed to evolve, and the consequences of mutations require experimental and epidemiological evidence, and should not be too panic.
According to the Press Trust of India, India has discovered two new virus lineages and 73 new variants of the new coronavirus strain. With such a large number of new variants, one can't help but worry about its impact on the epidemic of the new coronavirus. In response, Wang Ying, a professor at the Shanghai Institute of Immunology of Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine and vice chairman of the Shanghai Society of Immunology, told the media that the mutation of the new coronavirus may be regional, and the epidemic strains in various regions may have different mutations. This is related to the genetic background of the race, and it is unlikely that a new variety found in one area will become popular in another area.
In addition to the virus itself, the people are most concerned about whether this mutation will invalidate the vaccine that is being developed against the clock.
Wang Ying said that these mutations are less likely to cause the current vaccine development failure. On the one hand, because the new coronavirus vaccine under development has enough sites to produce immune protection, mutations in many gene loci will not necessarily make the vaccine invalid; on the other hand, vaccine developers should pay attention to the progress of new coronavirus mutations and explore these The biological significance of gene mutations allows a more comprehensive grasp of the design of candidate vaccines in vaccine development and ensures that sufficient immune protection can be induced.
Chen Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a researcher at the Academy of Military Medicine, also pointed out in an earlier interview that no matter how fast the new coronavirus mutates, it is also in the category of coronavirus. At present, big data research is developing rapidly, and once new mutations appear , The common target antigen, pathogenesis or receptor can be found immediately through bioinformatics or big data mining, which can quickly guide the improvement of vaccines.