AI Article Synopsis
- Japan was experiencing a fourth wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections in March 2021, highlighting the need to understand immune responses to different variants.
- A study tested the neutralizing ability of sera from 81 COVID-19 patients across the pandemic waves against various variants, revealing most sera were effective against all but particularly weak against the B.1.351 variant.
- Results showed that patients with more severe infections had stronger neutralizing responses, and high effectiveness against the B.1.1.7 variant in the fourth wave suggests that virus mutations may alter immune recognition, potentially offering some protection to recovered individuals against new variants.
Article Abstract
Background: As of March 2021, Japan is facing a fourth wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. To prevent further spread of infection, sera cross-neutralizing activity of patients previously infected with conventional SARS-CoV-2 against novel variants is important but has not been firmly established.
Methods: We investigated the neutralizing potency of 81 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients' sera from the first to fourth waves of the pandemic against SARS-CoV-2 D614G, B.1.1.7, P.1, and B.1.351 variants using their authentic viruses.
Results: Most sera had neutralizing activity against all variants, showing similar activity against B.1.1.7 and D614G, but lower activity especially against B.1.351. In the fourth wave, sera-neutralizing activity against B.1.1.7 was significantly higher than that against any other variants, including D614G. The sera-neutralizing activity in less severe patients was lower than that of more severe patients for all variants.
Conclusions: The cross-neutralizing activity of convalescent sera was effective against all variants but was potentially weaker for B.1.351. The high neutralizing activity specific to B.1.1.7 in the fourth wave suggests that mutations in the virus might cause conformational change of its spike protein, which affects immune recognition of D614G. Our results indicate that individuals who recover from COVID-19 could be protected from the severity caused by infection with newly emerging variants.
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Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8496759 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofab430 | DOI Listing |
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