Zijun Wang - March 17, 2021

Zijun Wang, PhD, Postdoctoral Associate, Michel C. Nussenzweig Lab, The Rockefeller University, mRNA vaccine-elicited antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and circulating variants

Dr. Wang presented their newly published results regarding the neutralizing activity of mRNA vaccine-elicited antibodies to SARS-CoV2 and other variants. They found that the plasma neutralizing potential and memory B cell numbers of vaccinated volunteers were similar to those recovering from the infection, but the plasma activity against viral variants decreased slightly but significantly. However, the monoclonal antibodies' neutralizing activity elicited by the vaccines was reduced dramatically to the K417N, E484K, or N501Y mutant variants, although the vaccine-elicited monoclonal antibodies neutralized no-mutant SARS-CoV2 robustly. Because of the varied mutation locations in the receptor-binding domain (RBD), the viral variants were specifically resistant to a specific class of monoclonal antibodies. Hence, the antibody combinationswere still able to neutralize all the viral variants potently. In summary, the vaccine-elicited antibodies became weaker to neutralize several viral variants. With combination strategies or polyclonal antibodies, the vaccine-elicited antibody immunity was still protective. But we should appropriately update the clinical application of the monoclonalantibodies, or the vaccine design according to the viral variants.