New biothreat of JN.1 variant SARS CoV-2: viral genome, mutations and comparison with Delta and Omicron variants – a brief commentary

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2, the etiologic agent of COVID-19, is susceptible to mutations and emerged into many variants. This study aims to investigate a new variant called JN.1 with a remarkable number of mutations reported from many countries. All viral members of Coronaviridae are single-stranded RNA viruses. It is noteworthy that all variants possessed RNA that can behave directly as mRNA (positive polarity). Due to this property, these variants can have rapid transmissibility, leading to a pandemic disease in a short span of time. When a variant replicates in a susceptible cell during the biosynthesis stage, it frequently leads to RNA replication errors. Due to these replication errors, there is expression of new genes that will lead to the formation of new viral proteins. Due to repeated RNA replication errors, variants like Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and others have evolved in SARS-CoV-2. JN.1 subvariant of Omicron possesses more than 35 amino acid mutations in the spike protein. Due to these mutations, JN.1 has acquired easy transmissibility, increased virulence, and resistance to available COVID-19 vaccines. World Health Organization (WHO) recently classified JN.1 as a ‘variant of interest’ (VOI).

Keywords

• covid-19
• sars-cov-2
• jn.1
• variant
• delta variant
• omicron variant
• mutation