SARS-CoV-2 Omicron spike mediated immune escape, infectivity and cell-cell fusion
Publication: bioRxiv
Bo Meng, Isabella A.T.M Ferreira, Adam Abdullahi, Steven A. Kemp, Niluka Goonawardane, Guido Papa, Saman Fatihi, Oscar J. Charles, Dami A. Collier, CITIID-NIHR BioResource COVID-19 Collaboration, The Genotype to Phenotype Japan (G2P-Japan) Consortium, Jinwook Choi, Joo Hyeon Lee, Petra Mlcochova, Leo James, Rainer Doffinger, Lipi Thukral, Kei Sato, View ORCID ProfileRavindra K. Gupta
21 December 2021
Summary
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus replicates and spreads, errors in its genetic code can lead to changes in the virus. Working in secure conditions, researchers created synthetic viruses – known as ‘pseudoviruses’ – that carried key mutations found in the Delta and Omicron strains. They used these to study the virus’s behaviour.
They tested the pseudoviruses against blood samples donated to the NIHR COVID-19 BioResource. The blood samples were from vaccinated individuals who had received two doses of either the AstraZeneca (ChAdOx-1) or Pfizer (BNT162b2) vaccines. Read the full story.