SARS-CoV-2 variants: a new challenge to convalescent serum and mRNA vaccine neutralization efficiency

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is the target of antibodies in convalescent and vaccine sera, and 23 mutations in spike protein were reported in the variants B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1 (Fig. 1a ). Recently, several groups evaluated the effects of convalescent and mRNA vaccine sera on two major circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 (Fig. 1b ), 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 which leads to concerns about the immune escape of these variants from the human acquired immunity stimulated by previous infections and mRNA vaccines. Fig. 1 A schematic illustration of SARS-CoV-2 S protein sequence, prevalent mutations in current circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, and the neutralization efficiency change of two mRNA vaccines—vaccine AZD1222 and vaccine BNT162b2. a RBM sequence (amino acid 437–508) containing N439K, E484K, and N501Y is a highly variable region, and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein mutations of three major circulating variants B.1.1.7, B.1.351, and P.1 are displayed, which can be tracked online ( https://covariants.org/ , https://cov-lineages.org/ ). b The neutralization efficiency of two major vaccines—vaccine AZD1222 and vaccine BNT162b2 to major circulating variants and potentially important variants of SARS-CoV-2 are exhibited. The neutralizing activity of the vaccine sera against different variants are shown in different colors from light red (no sufficient decrease), lycopene (decrease between 1.5-fold and 2.5-fold), to wine red (decrease more than 2.5-fold) Full size image