The appearance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant Omicron (B.1.1.529) has caused panic responses around the world because of its high transmission rate and number of mutations. This review summarizes the highly mutated regions, the essential infectivity, transmission, vaccine breakthrough and antibody resistance of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2. The Omicron is highly transmissible and is spreading faster than any previous variant, but may cause less severe symptoms than previous variants. The Omicron is able to escape the immune system's defenses and coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines are less effective against the Omicron variant. Early careful preventive steps including vaccination will always be key for the suppression of the Omicron variant.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.12998/wjcc.v10.i1.1 | DOI Listing |
PNAS Nexus
January 2025
Department of Refractory Viral Diseases, National Center for Global Health and Medicine Research Institute, 1-21-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan.
We identified a 5-fluoro-benzothiazole-containing small molecule, TKB272, through fluorine-scanning of the benzothiazole moiety, which more potently inhibits the enzymatic activity of SARS-CoV-2's main protease (M) and more effectively blocks the infectivity and replication of all SARS-CoV-2 strains examined including Omicron variants such as SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-2 than two M inhibitors: nirmatrelvir and ensitrelvir. Notably, the administration of ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir and ensitrelvir causes drug-drug interactions warranting cautions due to their CYP3A4 inhibition, thereby limiting their clinical utility. When orally administered, TKB272 blocked SARS-CoV-2 replication without ritonavir in B6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Immunol
January 2025
RNAimmune, Inc., Germantown, MD, United States.
Background: The unrelenting emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants has significantly challenged the efficacy of existing COVID-19 vaccines. Enhancing the stability and immunogenicity of the spike protein is critical for improving vaccine performance and addressing variant-driven immune evasion.
Methods: We developed an mRNA-based vaccine, RV-1730, encoding the Delta variant spike protein with the S6P mutation to enhance stability and immunogenicity.
Molnupiravir is an antiviral medicine that induces lethal copying errors during SARS-CoV-2 RNA replication. Molnupiravir reduced hospitalization in one pivotal trial by 50% and had variable effects on reducing viral RNA levels in three separate trials. We used mathematical models to simulate these trials and closely recapitulated their virologic outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommun Med (Lond)
January 2025
URC EST, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France.
Background: We previously reported the safety and immunogenicity data from a randomized trial comparing the booster responses of vaccinees who received monovalent (MV) recombinant protein Beta-variant (MVB.1.351) and MV ancestral protein (MVD614) vaccines with AS03 adjuvant (Sanofi/GSK) to booster response of vaccinees who received mRNA MV ancestral strain BNT162b2 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Commun
January 2025
Department of Viral Immunology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany.
The recently detected Omicron BA.2.86 lineage contains more than 30 amino acid mutations relative to BA.
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