Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Feb;602(7898):676-681.
doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04388-0. Epub 2021 Dec 23.

Striking antibody evasion manifested by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Lihong Liu #  1 , Sho Iketani #  1   2 , Yicheng Guo #  1 , Jasper F-W Chan #  3   4 , Maple Wang #  1 , Liyuan Liu #  5 , Yang Luo  1 , Hin Chu  3   4 , Yiming Huang  5 , Manoj S Nair  1 , Jian Yu  1 , Kenn K-H Chik  4 , Terrence T-T Yuen  3 , Chaemin Yoon  3 , Kelvin K-W To  3   4 , Honglin Chen  3   4 , Michael T Yin  1   6 , Magdalena E Sobieszczyk  1   6 , Yaoxing Huang  1 , Harris H Wang  5 , Zizhang Sheng  1 , Kwok-Yung Yuen  3   4 , David D Ho  7   8   9
Affiliations

Striking antibody evasion manifested by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2

Lihong Liu et al. Nature. 2022 Feb.

Abstract

The B.1.1.529/Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 was only recently detected in southern Africa, but its subsequent spread has been extensive, both regionally and globally1. It is expected to become dominant in the coming weeks2, probably due to enhanced transmissibility. A striking feature of this variant is the large number of spike mutations3 that pose a threat to the efficacy of current COVID-19 vaccines and antibody therapies4. This concern is amplified by the findings of our study. Here we found that B.1.1.529 is markedly resistant to neutralization by serum not only from patients who recovered from COVID-19, but also from individuals who were vaccinated with one of the four widely used COVID-19 vaccines. Even serum from individuals who were vaccinated and received a booster dose of mRNA-based vaccines exhibited substantially diminished neutralizing activity against B.1.1.529. By evaluating a panel of monoclonal antibodies against all known epitope clusters on the spike protein, we noted that the activity of 17 out of the 19 antibodies tested were either abolished or impaired, including ones that are currently authorized or approved for use in patients. Moreover, we also identified four new spike mutations (S371L, N440K, G446S and Q493R) that confer greater antibody resistance on B.1.1.529. The Omicron variant presents a serious threat to many existing COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, compelling the development of new interventions that anticipate the evolutionary trajectory of SARS-CoV-2.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Shu, Y. & McCauley, J. GISAID: global initiative on sharing all influenza data—from vision to reality. Euro Surveill. 22, 30494 (2017). - DOI
    1. Grabowski, F., Kochańczyk, M. & Lipniacki, T. Omicron strain spreads with the doubling time of 3.2—3.6 days in South Africa province of Gauteng that achieved herd immunity to Delta variant. Preprint at https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.08.21267494 (2021).
    1. Scott, L. et al. Track Omicron’s spread with molecular data. Science 374, 1454–1455 (2021). - DOI
    1. Wang, P. et al. Antibody resistance of SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.351 and B.1.1.7. Nature 593, 130–135 (2021). - DOI
    1. Abu-Raddad, L. J., Chemaitelly, H. & Butt, A. A. Effectiveness of the BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine against the B.1.1.7 and B.1.351 variants. N. Engl. J. Med. 385, 187–189 (2021). - DOI

Publication types

MeSH terms

Supplementary concepts

LinkOut - more resources