Abstract
The global pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), places a heavy burden on global public health. Four SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern including B.1.1.7, B.1.351, B.1.617.2, and P.1, and two variants of interest including C.37 and B.1.621 have been reported to have potential immune escape, and one or more mutations endow them with worrisome epidemiologic, immunologic, or pathogenic characteristics. This review introduces the latest research progress on SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest and concern, key mutation sites, and their effects on virus infectivity, mortality, and immune escape. Moreover, we compared the effects of various clinical SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and convalescent sera on epidemic variants, and evaluated the neutralizing capability of several antibodies on epidemic variants. In the end, SARS-CoV-2 evolution strategies in different transmission stages, the impact of different vaccination strategies on SARS-CoV-2 immune escape, antibody therapy strategies and COVID-19 epidemic control prospects are discussed. This review will provide a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the secret of SARS-CoV-2 variants of interest/concern and immune escape.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), broke out in Wuhan, China in December 2019
variants of concern (VOC) refers to the SARS-CoV-2 variants that can increase the transmissibility or cause detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology by strongly impairing the effectiveness of vaccines and neutralizing antibodies (Table 1), or can cause more serious disease conditions
The results showed that compared with wildtype (WT), the BBIBP-CorV-immune serum remained neutralizing potency to B.1.1.7, but the geometric mean titers (GMTs) of CoronaVac-immune serum against B.1.1.7 decreased significantly [24]
Summary
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), broke out in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the lineage originated from Nigeria [42] It did not circulate all over the world, it was defined as the lineage of international significance [43] and was classified as VUM for the possibility of increasing infectivity, virulence and reducing the effectiveness of the vaccine by notable mutations carried by the variant (https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2variants/). The mutation in this site seemed to have a positive effect on immune escape, as the mutation of L452 residue may induce the conformational change of RBD, reducing the binding ability of several monoclonal neutralizing antibodies [2, 61,62,63] and diminishing the neutralization activity of convalescent sera [37, 61]. Real-world research has confirmed that the protective effectiveness of AstraZeneca
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