January 28, 2021

Neutralization of Spike 6970 Deletion E484K and N501Y SARS-CoV-2 by BNT162b2 Vaccine-Elicited Sera

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Vaccines and Immunity

Keywords (Tags): immunity, vaccines, variants

[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Sera from recipients who completed the 2-dose regimen of the Pfizer vaccine BNT162b2 (n=20) had similar neutralizing geometric mean titers (GMTs) against SARS-CoV-2 viruses engineered to contain key spike protein mutations from variants emerging from the UK (B.1.1.7) and South Africa (B.1.351) compared to GMTs against the wild-type virus. Compared to the GMTs against the wild-type virus, GMTs against viruses with the N501Y mutation (present in both variants) and the key B.1.1.7 mutations (Δ69/70+N501Y+D614G) were 1.46- and 1.41-fold higher, respectively. In contrast, GMTs against the key B.1.351 mutations (E484K+N501Y+D614G) were 19% lower than wild-type. The authors note that the engineered viruses do not contain the full set of mutations present in variants B.1.1.7 and B.1.351.

Xie et al. (Jan 27, 2021). Neutralization of Spike 6970 Deletion E484K and N501Y SARS-CoV-2 by BNT162b2 Vaccine-Elicited Sera. Pre-print downloaded Jan 28 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.27.427998