It shows that plasma antibodies target numerous epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 spike such that ~TWENTY mutations are needed for neutralization escape from polyclonal antibodies elicited by infection or vaccination.
Notably, antibodies from those who had been BOTH infected AND later vaccinated (2x mRNA), neutralized the #polymutant and as well as diverse bat/pangolin sarbecoviruses and SARS-CoV
Thus, immune responses generated by infection or 2x mRNA vaccination alone do not come anywhere close to maximizing the capacity of human antibodies to neutralize SARS-CoV-2 variants and relatives
This, and the fact that vaccine efficacy is erroding means (IMO) that 'boosters' will/should be the norm for most of us at some point in the not-too-distant future.
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K417N, E484K and N501Y in SARS-CoV-2 “variants of concern” in UK, SA and Brazil are antibody escape mutations. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
Each confers resistance to commonly elicited RBD neutralizing antibodies cloned from mRNA vaccinees
Together, K417N, E484K and N501Y confer some (not complete) resistance to neutralization by vaccine recipient polyclonal plasma.
If we grow rVSV/SARS-CoV-2 with the cloned antibodies, most select for mutations at K417, E484 and/or N501.
Structures of vaccine-recipient antibodies with spike show K417, E484 or N501 are often in the epitopes of RBD-specific, vaccine elicited neutralizing antibodies