The Lambda variant of SARS-CoV-2 has a better chance than the Delta variant to escape vaccines

  1. Haolin Liu
  2. Pengcheng Wei
  3. Qianqian Zhang
  4. Katja Aviszus
  5. Jared Linderberger
  6. John Yang
  7. Junfeng Liu
  8. Zhongzhou Chen
  9. Hassan Waheed
  10. Lyndon Reynoso
  11. Gregory P. Downey
  12. Stephen K. Frankel
  13. John Kappler
  14. Philippa Marrack
  15. Gongyi Zhang

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Abstract

The newly emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 from India (Delta variant) and South America (Lambda variant) have led to a higher infection rate of either vaccinated or unvaccinated people. We found that sera from Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remain high reactivity toward the receptor binding domain (RBD) of Delta variant while it drops dramatically toward that of Lambda variant. Interestingly, the overall titer of antibodies of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccinated individuals drops 3-fold after 6 months, which could be one of major reasons for breakthrough infections, emphasizing the importance of potential third boost shot. While a therapeutic antibody, Bamlanivimab, decreases binding affinity to Delta variant by ~20 fold, it fully lost binding to Lambda variant. Structural modeling of complexes of RBD with human receptor, Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2), and Bamlanivimab suggest the potential basis of the change of binding. The data suggest possible danger and a potential surge of Lambda variant in near future.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.25.457692: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    The bound antibody was detected by AP conjugated goat- anti- human IgG Fc specific antibody.
    anti- human IgG
    suggested: None
    Recombinant DNA
    SentencesResources
    SARS-CoV-2 RBD plasmid cloning and protein expression: SARS-CoV-2 wildtype RBD (319-541aa) was cloned to pCDNA3.1 vector with 6 histidine tag.
    SARS-CoV-2 RBD
    suggested: None
    pCDNA3.1
    suggested: RRID:Addgene_79663)
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Delta variant (L452R_T478K) and Lambda variant (L452Q_F490S) structures were prepared by Coot software 26.
    Coot
    suggested: (Coot, RRID:SCR_014222)
    All protein structural figures are prepared by PyMOL.
    PyMOL
    suggested: (PyMOL, RRID:SCR_000305)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.25.457692v1 on bioRxiv