Acquisition of the L 452 R mutation in the ACE 2-binding interface of Spike protein 1 triggers recent massive expansion of SARS-Cov-2 variants 2

Acquisition of the L452R mutation in the ACE2-binding interface of Spike protein 1 triggers recent massive expansion of SARS-Cov-2 variants 2 Veronika Tchesnokova, Hemantha Kulakesara, Lydia Larson, Victoria Bowers, 3 Elena Rechkina, Dagmara Kisiela, Yulia Sledneva, Debarati Choudhury, Iryna 4 Maslova, Kai Deng, Kirthi Kutumbaka, Hao Geng, Curtis Fowler, Dina Greene, 5 James Ralston, Mansour Samadpour, Evgeni Sokurenko 6 1 University of Washington, Seattle, WA 7 2 ID Genomics, Inc., Seattle, WA 8 3 IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group, Seattle, WA 9 4 ARMADA (The Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring, Analysis and Diagnostics Alliance), 10 Seattle, WA 11 5 Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) and KPWA Research Institute, Seattle, WA 12 $ Corresponding author: Evgeni V. Sokurenko, evs@uw.edu 13