1. Acquisition of resistance to wild-type spike-immune sera by emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants
- Author
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Junichi Takagi, Masako Kohyama, Atsushi Kumanogoh, Takayuki Kato, Yoshiharau Matsuura, Mika Hirose, Asa Tada, Atsushi Nakagawa, Wataru Nakai, Manabu Fujimoto, Kanako Akamatsu, Jun-ichi Kishikawa, Hisashi Arase, Chikako Ono, Sumiko Matsuoka, Kazuki Kishida, Yoshiaki Yamagishi, Masato Okada, Hui Jin, Daron M. Standley, Akemi Arakawa, Yafei Liu, Hironori Nakagami, Songling Li, and Noriko Arase
- Subjects
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ,Wild type ,Spike (software development) ,Biology ,Immune sera ,Virology - Abstract
Breakthrough infection is often observed for the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, and neutralizing antibody levels are associated with vaccine efficiency1. Recent studies revealed that not only anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) antibodies2 but also antibodies against the N-terminal domain (NTD) play important roles in positively3,4 or negatively4-8 controlling SARS-CoV-2 infectivity. Here, we found that the Delta variant completely escaped from anti-NTD neutralizing antibodies, while increasing responsiveness to anti-NTD infectivity-enhancing antibodies. Cryo-EM analysis of the Delta spike revealed that epitopes for anti-NTD neutralizing antibodies are structurally divergent, whereas epitopes for enhancing antibodies are well conserved with wild-type spike protein. Although Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2-immune sera neutralized the original Delta variant, when major anti-RBD neutralizing antibody epitopes remaining in the Delta variant were disrupted, some BNT162b2-immune sera not only lost neutralizing activity but became infection-enhanced. The enhanced infectivity disappeared when the Delta NTD was substituted with the wild-type NTD. Sera of mice immunized by Delta spike, but not wild-type spike, consistently neutralized the Delta variant lacking anti-RBD antibody epitopes without enhancing infectivity. Importantly, SARS-CoV-2 variants with similar mutations in the RBD have already emerged according to the GISAID database and their pseudoviruses were resistant to some BNT162b2-immune sera. These findings demonstrate that mutations in the NTD, as well as the RBD, play an important role in antibody escape by SARS-CoV-2. Development of effective vaccines against emerging variants will be necessary, not only to protect against infection, but also to prevent further mutation of SARS-CoV-2.
- Published
- 2021
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