Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

January 8, 2021

Neutralization of N501Y Mutant SARS-CoV-2 by BNT162b2 Vaccine-Elicited Sera

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[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Sera from people vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) (n=20) had equivalent neutralizing antibody titers to the SARS-CoV-2 strain on which the vaccine was based and a laboratory-developed SARS-CoV-2 strain carrying a N501Y substitution, which is one of the mutations associated with rapidly spreading variants in the United Kingdom and South Africa. The ratio of the 50% neutralization geometric mean titers of the sera against the Y501 virus to that against the N501 virus was 1.46, indicating no reduction in neutralization activity against the virus bearing the Y501 spike. The authors caution that the Y501 virus tested does not include all of the mutations in the spike protein that are found on the rapidly spreading strains in the UK and South Africa.

Xie et al. (Jan 7, 2021). Neutralization of N501Y Mutant SARS-CoV-2 by BNT162b2 Vaccine-Elicited Sera. Pre-print downloaded Jan 8 from https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.07.425740v1