Rapid screening assays of N501Y and E484K SARS-CoV-2 variants and identification of an emerging N501T variant in France

Abstract

From September 2020, new variants of concern of SARS-CoV-2 were detected in Europe. In this context, our hospital center has led us to be particularly vigilant in the search for and detection of these variants. To this end, two SARS-CoV-2 Mutation Discrimination assays for the detection of 501 and 484 mutations on spike protein were developed. It allowed to quickly identify the United Kingdom variant 20I/501Y.V1 and the south-african variant 20H/501Y.V2 that were circulating in our region and surprisingly identify a mutation of interest (N501T), which reported for the first time the A.28 lineage in France.