[Folding@home] Circulating SARS-CoV-2 spike N439K variants maintain fitness while evading antibody-mediated immunity

[BOINC_News]

Cell. 2021 Mar 4;184(5):1171-1187.e20. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.037. Epub 2021 Jan 28. ABSTRACT SARS-CoV-2 can mutate and evade immunity, with consequences for efficacy of emerging vaccines and antibody therapeutics. Here, we demonstrate that the immunodominant SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) receptor binding motif (RBM) is a highly variable region of S and provide epidemiological, clinical, and molecular characterization of a prevalent, sentinel RBM mutation, N439K. We demonstrate N439K S protein has enhanced binding affinity to the hACE2 receptor, and N439K viruses have similar in vitro replication fitness and cause infections with similar clinical outcomes as compared to wild type. We show the N439K mutation confers resistance against several neutralizing monoclonal antibodies, including one authorized for...

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