SARS-CoV-2 Kappa variant
a subvariant of lineage B.1.617
Kappa variant is a variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It is one of the three sublineages of Pango lineage B.1.617. The SARS-CoV-2 Kappa variant is also known as lineage B.1.617.1 and was first detected in India in December 2020. By the end of March 2021, the Kappa sub-variant accounted for more than half of the sequences being submitted from India. On 1 April 2021, it was designated a Variant Under Investigation (VUI-21APR-01) by Public Health England.
Mutations
The Kappa variant has three notable alterations in the amino-acid sequences, all of which are in the virus's spike protein code.
The three notable substitutions are: L452R, E484Q, P681R
L452R. The substitution at position 452, a leucine-to-arginine substitution. This exchange confers stronger affinity of the spike protein for the ACE2 receptor along with decreased recognition capability of the immune system.
E484Q. The substitution at position 484, a glutamic acid-to-glutamine substitution. This alteration confers the variant stronger binding potential to Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2, as well as better ability to evade hosts' immune systems.
“SARS-CoV-2 Kappa variant” enters the record as a subvariant of lineage B.1.617. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what SARS-CoV-2, Kappa and variant can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q107055239. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2020 and 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “SARS-CoV-2 Kappa variant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.