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Omicron extensively but incompletely escapes Pfizer BNT162b2 neutralization

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Sandile Cele, Laurelle Jackson, David S. Khoury, Khadija Khan, Thandeka Moyo-Gwete, Houriiyah Tegally, James Emmanuel San, Deborah Cromer, Cathrine Scheepers, Daniel Gyamfi Amoako, Farina Karim, Mallory P. Bernstein, Gila Lustig, Derseree Archary, Muneerah Smith, Yashica Ganga, Zesuliwe Jule, Kajal Reedoy, Shi-Hsia Hwa, Jennifer Giandhari, Jonathan Michael Blackburn, Bernadett Isabel Gosnell, Salim S. Abdool Karim, Willem Albert Hanekom, Network for Genomic Surveillance in, COMMIT-KZN Team, Anne von Gottberg, Jinal N. Bhiman, Richard J. Lessells, Mahomed‐Yunus S. Moosa, Miles P. Davenport, Túlio de Oliveira, Penny L. Moore, Alex Sigal·2021·Nature

Abstract

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern Omicron (Pango lineage B.1.1.529), first identified in Botswana and South Africa, may compromise vaccine effectiveness and lead to re-infections1. Here we investigated Omicron escape from neutralization by antibodies from South African individuals vaccinated with Pfizer BNT162b2. We used blood samples taken soon after vaccination from individuals who were vaccinated and previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccinated with no evidence of previous infection. We isolated and sequence-confirmed live Omicron virus from an infected person and observed that Omicron requires the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor to infect cells. We compared plasma neutralization of Omicron relative to an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain and found that neutralization of ancestral virus was much higher in infected and vaccinated individuals compared with the vaccinated-only participants. However, both groups showed a 22-fold reduction in vaccine-elicited neutralization by the Omicron variant. Participants who were vaccinated and had previously been infected exhibited residual neutralization of Omicron similar to the level of neutralization of the ancestral virus observed in the vaccination-only group. These data support the notion that reasonable protection against Omicron may be maintained using vaccination approaches. Plasma from individuals vaccinated with BNT162b2 exhibits 22-fold less neutralization capacity against Omicron (B.1.1.529) than against an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain but residual neutralization is maintained in those with high levels of neutralization of ancestral virus.

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Metadata

Authors
Cele, S., Jackson, L., Khoury, D. S., Khan, K., Moyo-Gwete, T., Tegally, H., San, J. E., Cromer, D., Scheepers, C., Amoako, D. G., Karim, F., Bernstein, M. P., Lustig, G., Archary, D., Smith, M., Ganga, Y., Jule, Z., Reedoy, K., Hwa, S.-H., Giandhari, J., Blackburn, J. M., Gosnell, B. I., Karim, S. S. A., Hanekom, W. A., Network for Genomic Surveillance in, COMMIT-KZN Team, von Gottberg, A., Bhiman, J. N., Lessells, R. J., Moosa, M. S., Davenport, M. P., de Oliveira, T., Moore, P. L., & Sigal, A.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Published
2021-12-23
ISSN
0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4200170989
Cited by
178
References
16
FWCI
12.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
hybrid

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Omicron extensively but incompletely escapes Pfizer BNT162b2 neutralization. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/d41586-021-03824-5
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Cele, S., Jackson, L., Khoury, D. S., Khan, K., Moyo-Gwete, T., Tegally, H., San, J. E., Cromer, D., Scheepers, C., Amoako, D. G., Karim, F., Bernstein, M. P., Lustig, G., Archary, D., Smith, M., Ganga, Y., Jule, Z., Reedoy, K., Hwa, S.-H., . . . Sigal, A. (2021). Omicron extensively but incompletely escapes Pfizer BNT162b2 neutralization. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-03824-5

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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