Abstract

The effect of emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants on vaccine efficacy is of critical importance. In this study, the potential impact of mutations that facilitate escape from the cytotoxic cellular immune response in these new virus variants for the 551 most abundant HLA class I alleles was analyzed. Computational prediction showed that most of these alleles, that cover >90% of the population, contain enough epitopes without escape mutations in the principal SARS-CoV-2 variants. These data suggest that the cytotoxic cellular immune protection elicited by vaccination is not greatly affected by emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Highlights

  • Vaccine performance against current and future emerging SARS-CoV-2 strains is a challenging issue in the control of COVID-19 [1]

  • Vaccine prophylaxis is a critical factor in social protection and economic recovery against the pandemic, current formulations are based on the original D614 spike protein sequence of the Wuhan-1 wild-type strain

  • Changes in the S protein between new SARS-CoV-2 variants compared to antigens included in current vaccines in use can lead to the selection of escape mutants

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Vaccine performance against current and future emerging SARS-CoV-2 strains is a challenging issue in the control of COVID-19 [1]. Changes in the S protein between new SARS-CoV-2 variants compared to antigens included in current vaccines in use can lead to the selection of escape mutants. In contrast to the flexibility of the epitope-HLA class I interaction, recognition of mutated peptides by the T cell receptor is rigid, where a single change in the epitope sequence can cause a total loss of antigen recognition This extremely low tolerance to amino acid changes with respect to the sequence used for vaccination favors epitope escape at the T lymphocyte activation level, rendering previously activated lymphocytes useless. SARS2-CoV-2 Escape Mutants and Vaccines re-infection associated with different viral genotypes were detected at the beginning of the pandemic [7], and re-infection of immunized individuals by mutational evasion is common in other viruses such as influenza [8]. We observed some supertypedependent differences in the predicted quality of cytotoxic protection against strains of concern, this effect is still minor compared to the global cytotoxic response elicited of current administrated vaccines

METHODS
AND DISCUSSION
19 Massachusetts
Findings
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

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