Third booster sera samples have been found to produce a four- six-fold decrease in neutralisation when tested against the Omicron variant
In a laboratory-based study, third booster sera samples from patients have been shown to produce a four to six-fold reduction in neutralisation against the Omicron COVID-19 variant. This was the finding of a preprint study by researchers from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, New York, US.
The Omicron COVID-19 variant (B.1.1.529) was first identified in southern Africa and appears to have a high level of transmissibility and will likely cause outbreaks across the globe. A concern with this particular variant is that it contains more than 30 mutations,15 of which are present in the receptor-binding domain region which is the target for neutralising antibodies produced in response to vaccination. It is therefore possible that the Omicron might lead to an increased level of infection despite vaccination although current opinion is that this could be mitigated by a third booster sera sample.
In the absence of clinical data, the US team sought to better understand the extent to which the Omicron variant is able to evade antibody neutralisation, by testing the activity of serum collected from a number of different patient samples. Initially the team created an Omicron pseudovirus and tested this against 10 sera samples collected from the Spring of 2020, which were likely to have been infected with the wild-type (original) COVID-19 virus. While there was a robust response to the wild-type, there was a greater than 32-fold reduction against Omicron and only two samples produced antibody titres above the limit of detection.
Vaccinated samples
The team then turned their attention to both fully vaccinated and third booster sera (TBS) samples. For the two mRNA-based vaccines, BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, there was a >21-fold decrease in ID50 and > 8.6-fold decrease in boosted sera samples. For the other vaccines, Ad26.COV2.S and ChAdOx1, all samples produced antibody titres below the limit of detection apart from two samples for which the individual had a history of a prior infection.
Using 15 third booster sera samples obtained from BNT162b2 (13) and mRNA-1273, the researchers discovered that although each of these third booster sera produced antibody titres above the limit, there was a mean 6.5-fold drop compared to the wild-type.
Using authenticated Omicron isolates and samples from BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, there was a greater than 6-fold drop in titres for fully vaccinated and a greater than 4.1-fold drop for boosted samples.
Finally, testing sera with monoclonal antibodies, the researchers found that all four combinations of monoclonal antibodies in clinical use lost substantial activity against Omicron.
Although this was a laboratory-based study and might not be replicated in clinical practice, the authors believed that COVID-19 is potentially only a mutation or two away from being resistant to current antibodies and that it was important to devise strategies that anticipate the evolutional direction of the virus and that future work should focus on the development of agents targeting conserved parts of the virus.
Citation
Liu L et al. Striking Antibody Evasion Manifested by the Omicron Variant of SARS-CoV-2 BioRxiv 2021
