Strong attenuation of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 and increased replication of the BA.5 subvariant in human cardiomyocytes
Open accessAbstract
Since its first description in South Africa in November 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant rapidly outcompeted the previously dominating Delta variant. Omicron is the fifth variant of concern (VOC). It contains an unusually high number of mutations compared to previous VOCs, especially in the viral Spike protein, and shows high transmissibility and efficient escape of neutralizing antibodies. Due to these characteristics, it received this designation much faster than the four previous VOCs Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. However, the original BA.1 Omicron variant seems to be less pathogenic than early SARS-CoV-2 strains and other VOCs. 1 While SARS-CoV-2 primarily infects the respiratory tract, Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) is a multi-organ disease, and patients show infection and disorders in the gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and neurological systems. Thus, the ability of the various SARS-CoV-2 variants to infect and propagate in different cell types and organs clearly plays a key role in viral pathogenicity. Especially, cardiomyocytes express high levels of the primary SARS-CoV-2 receptor ACE2 and are highly permissive for viral replication. 2
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Delta may have been more effective at inducing myocarditis than Omicron.
“These findings suggest that Delta may have been more affective at inducing myocarditis than Omicron.”
From COVID-19, Myocarditis and Pericarditis (2023) · cites this paper as [111]
In the Dear Editor section (page not specified), Delta caused stronger cytopathic effects and higher proinflammatory cytokine levels in human cardiomyocyte cultures than Omicron BA.1. The authors infer that BA.1 may be less likely to cause cardiac injury, but they did not measure myocarditis in patients; their comparison also does not extend to all Omicron subvariants, since BA.5 showed features more similar to Delta. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Nchioua, R., Diofano, F., Noettger, S., von Maltitz, P., Stenger, S., Zech, F., Münch, J., Sparrer, K. M. J., Just, S., & Kirchhoff, F.
- Affiliations
- University Hospital Ulm (DE)
- Universität Ulm (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Kirchhoff, Frank
- ORCID
- Venue
- Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
- Published
- 2022-12-25
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 395-395
- ISSN
- 2059-3635 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC9789943
- OpenAlex
- W4312128567
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 4.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- OPen Access Repositorium der Universität Ulm (OPARU) (Ulm University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Universität Ulm, Kommunikations- und Informationszentrum (kiz) (cc-by)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC 1279, CRC 1506)
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (Restrict SARS-CoV-2, IMMUNOMOD)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Virus Infections Studies
- Keywords
- Omicron variant, Omicron BA.1, Omicron BA.5, cardiomyocytes, viral replication, viral attenuation, pathogenicity, ACE2 receptor, COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, viral pathogenesis
- MeSH terms
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Humans, Myocytes, Cardiac
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