Journal article
SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant replication and immune evasion
- Abstract:
- The B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first identified in the state of Maharashtra in late 2020 and spread throughout India, outcompeting pre-existing lineages including B.1.617.1 (Kappa) and B.1.1.7 (Alpha)<sup>1</sup>. In vitro, B.1.617.2 is sixfold less sensitive to serum neutralizing antibodies from recovered individuals, and eightfold less sensitive to vaccine-elicited antibodies, compared with wild-type Wuhan-1 bearing D614G. Serum neutralizing titres against B.1.617.2 were lower in ChAdOx1 vaccinees than in BNT162b2 vaccinees. B.1.617.2 spike pseudotyped viruses exhibited compromised sensitivity to monoclonal antibodies to the receptor-binding domain and the amino-terminal domain. B.1.617.2 demonstrated higher replication efficiency than B.1.1.7 in both airway organoid and human airway epithelial systems, associated with B.1.617.2 spike being in a predominantly cleaved state compared with B.1.1.7 spike. The B.1.617.2 spike protein was able to mediate highly efficient syncytium formation that was less sensitive to inhibition by neutralizing antibody, compared with that of wild-type spike. We also observed that B.1.617.2 had higher replication and spike-mediated entry than B.1.617.1, potentially explaining the B.1.617.2 dominance. In an analysis of more than 130 SARS-CoV-2-infected health care workers across three centres in India during a period of mixed lineage circulation, we observed reduced ChAdOx1 vaccine effectiveness against B.1.617.2 relative to non-B.1.617.2, with the caveat of possible residual confounding. Compromised vaccine efficacy against the highly fit and immune-evasive B.1.617.2 Delta variant warrants continued infection control measures in the post-vaccination era.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
-
-
(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 10.9MB, Terms of use)
-
- Publisher copy:
- 10.1038/s41586-021-03944-y
Authors
Contributors
+ Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG)
- Role:
- Contributor
+ Genotype to Phenotype Japan (G2P-Japan) Consortium
- Role:
- Contributor
+ CITIID-NIHR BioResource COVID-19 Collaboration
- Role:
- Contributor
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Journal:
- Nature More from this journal
- Volume:
- 599
- Issue:
- 7883
- Pages:
- 114-119
- Place of publication:
- England
- Publication date:
- 2021-09-06
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-08-23
- DOI:
- EISSN:
-
1476-4687
- ISSN:
-
0028-0836
- Pmid:
-
34488225
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
1193949
- Local pid:
-
pubs:1193949
- Deposit date:
-
2022-04-29
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Mlcochova et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- ©2021 The Author(s). Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record