Description
Just cause I had issues with the pre proposal page (i ve tried to propose it multiple times but it never get saved) so i propose this here:
I think this could be quite urgent to be reviewed:
2 travellers entering United States via Virginia Washington Dalles airport coming from Nigeria have been sampled with this heavily mutated BQ.1.2.2 sublineage defined by 5 S1 Mutations , all known to be beneficial at least in the BQ.1 backbone:
Especially interesting it mutated the S:F486V defining of all BA.4/Ba.5 with S:V486A.
We have already saw S:F486A multiple times and it was succesfull in a BA.5.6 descendant BW.1.1 especially in Mexico.
S:P251L was succesfull in BQ.1.1.38 one of the more resilient lineages among the BQ. Clan
S:K182E popped up multiple times in BQ being the defining mutation of DN.3.1
S:E554K is uptrending globally (when emerging on the XBB backbone) and it was recently designated as defining mutation of FL.10.1
S:S494P was defining of BQ.1.11.1 and BQ.1.19 and recently it is defining of FY.4.1 emerging in Kenya.
Defining mutations:
BQ.1.2.2 (S:K147E,S:V445A) > S:S494P (T23042C) > C10156T, Orf1b:E1888K (G19129A), S:K182E (A22106G),S:P251L (C22314T),S: F486A (T23019C), S:E554K (G23222A), C24865T, G29779T
Gisaid query : EDITED: T22896C, G26951C,T23042C
Samples: 5 (as 07/07/2023)
EPI_ISL_17851464, EPI_ISL_17851591, EPI_ISL_17971795,
EPI_ISL_17971857, EPI_ISL_17971878
Fusogenicity:
Stuart Turville found BQ.1.2 to be over the average of other BA.5 lineages: see here