AUTHOR=Angulo Jenniffer , Martinez-Valdebenito Constanza , Pardo-Roa Catalina , Almonacid Leonardo I. , Fuentes-Luppichini Eugenia , Contreras Ana Maria , Maldonado Constanza , Le Corre Nicole , Melo Francisco , Medina Rafael A. , Ferrés Marcela TITLE=Assessment of Mutations Associated With Genomic Variants of SARS-CoV-2: RT-qPCR as a Rapid and Affordable Tool to Monitoring Known Circulating Variants in Chile, 2021 JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine VOLUME=9 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.841073 DOI=10.3389/fmed.2022.841073 ISSN=2296-858X ABSTRACT=
Since the first report of SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans, the virus has mutated to develop new viral variants with higher infection rates and more resistance to neutralization by antibodies elicited after natural SARS-CoV-2 infection or by vaccines. Therefore, rapid identification of viral variants circulating in the population is crucial for epidemiological assessment and efforts to contain the resurgence of the pandemic. Between January and November 2021, we performed a large variant RT-qPCR-based screening of mutations in the spike protein of 1851 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples derived from outpatients from the UC-Christus Health Network in Chile. In a portion of samples (