A.27 is of particular interest because the lineage shows a mutational pattern typical of VOIs/VOCs, including an accumulation of amino acid changes in the spike that are thought to lead to immune escape and higher transmissibility. Here, we now extend these analyses and also use the example of the spread of A.27 in Germany in the first months of 2021 to show how genomic surveillance enables monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 variants at the national level. also found A.27 sequences on the rise in western sub-Saharan Africa between May 2020 and March 2021. In addition, colleagues from the Rhein-Neckar district in Germany reported a local occurrence and decline of the A.27 variant in January and March 2021, while Anoh et al.
SARS-CoV-2 genomes belonging to the A.27 lineage were already identified in France in mid-January 2021 and analyzed in the context of other sequences available at that time, originating from the Comoros archipelago, Western European countries (mainly metropolitan France), Turkey and Nigeria. Overall, A.27 should continue to be monitored nationally and internationally, even though the observed trend in Germany was initially displaced by B.1.1.7 (Alpha), while now B.1.617.2 (Delta) is on the rise. In addition, A.27 does not show the D614G mutation typical for all VOIs/VOCs from the B lineage. Among those, L18F, L452R and N501Y are located in the epitope regions of the N-terminal- (NTD) or receptor binding domain (RBD) and have been suggested to result in immune escape and higher transmissibility. The A.27 lineage shows a mutational pattern typical of VOIs/VOCs, including an accumulation of amino acid substitutions in the Spike glycoprotein. From then on, the relative abundance of A.27 increased until the end of February but has since declined-meanwhile, the abundance of B.1.1.7 increased in the region. The first appearance of this lineage based on sequencing in a laboratory in Baden-Wuerttemberg can be dated to early January ’21. Baden-Wuerttemberg is located near the border with France, from where most A.27 sequences were entered into public databases until May 2021. Genomic surveillance identified 710 A.27 genomes in Germany as of, with a vast majority identified in laboratories from a single German state (Baden-Wuerttemberg, n = 572 80.5%). Here, we report on the increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 lineage A.27 in Germany during the first months of 2021.
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