Cited by 1,308SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Researchvaccines and immunoinformatics approachesAnimal Virus Infections Studies

Escape from neutralizing antibodies by SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variants

Open access
Weisblum, Yiska, Schmidt, Fabian, Zhang, Fengwen, DaSilva, Justin, Poston, Daniel, Lorenzi, Julio CC, Muecksch, Frauke, Rutkowska, Magdalena +16 more·2020·eLife

Published version of a preprint

Abstract

Neutralizing antibodies elicited by prior infection or vaccination are likely to be key for future protection of individuals and populations against SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, passively administered antibodies are among the most promising therapeutic and prophylactic anti-SARS-CoV-2 agents. However, the degree to which SARS-CoV-2 will adapt to evade neutralizing antibodies is unclear. Using a recombinant chimeric VSV/SARS-CoV-2 reporter virus, we show that functional SARS-CoV-2 S protein variants with mutations in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) and N-terminal domain that confer resistance to monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma can be readily selected. Notably, SARS-CoV-2 S variants that resist commonly elicited neutralizing antibodies are now present at low frequencies in circulating SARS-CoV-2 populations. Finally, the emergence of antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants that might limit the therapeutic usefulness of monoclonal antibodies can be mitigated by the use of antibody combinations that target distinct neutralizing epitopes.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.7554/elife.61312

Cites

55 of 55 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Class 1 antibodies are resisted by A475V; class 2 by E484K and Q493R; class 3 by R346S, N439K, and N440K.

    “A475V is resistant to class 1 antibodies (structurally defined as described29); E484K and Q493R are resistant to class 2 antibodies7,8,12,13,29,30,32,33; while R346S, N439K, and N440K are resistant to class 3 antibodies7,8,12,13,29,33.”
  • Mutations found in emergent S variants decrease sensitivity to neutralization by mAbs, convalescent plasma, and sera from vaccinated individuals.

    “Mutations found in emergent S variants decrease sensitivity to neutralization by mAbs, convalescent plasma, and sera from vaccinated individuals (27, 37, 58, 61–70).”
  • NTD-specific mAbs were suggested to interfere with viral entry based on other accessory receptors, such as DC-SIGN and L-SIGN, and their neutralization potency was found to be dependent on different in vitro culture conditions.

    “NTD-specific mAbs were suggested to interfere with viral entry based on other accessory receptors, such as DC-SIGN and L-SIGN46, and their neutralization potency was found to be dependent on different in vitro culture conditions24.”
  • Multiple variants, including the 501Y.V2 and B.1.1.7 lineages, harbor multiple mutations and deletions in NTD, most of which are located in a site of vulnerability targeted by all known NTD-specific neutralising antibodies.

    “Multiple variants, including the 501Y.V2 and B.1.1.7 lineages, harbor multiple mutations as well as deletions in NTD, most of which are located in a site of vulnerability that is targeted by all known NTD-specific neutralising antibodies24,45.”
  • Deletion of residue 144 abrogates binding by 4 out of 6 NTD-specific mAbs tested, possibly accounting for viral neutralization escape by most NTD-specific antibodies.

    “We previously showed that the deletion of residue 144 abrogates binding by 4 out of 6 NTD-specific mAbs tested, possibly accounting for viral neutralization escape by most NTD-specific antibodies24.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Weisblum, Y., Schmidt, F., Zhang, F., DaSilva, J., Poston, D., Lorenzi, J. C., Muecksch, F., Rutkowska, M., Hoffmann, H.-H., Michailidis, E., Gaebler, C., Agudelo, M., Cho, A., Wang, Z., Gazumyan, A., Cipolla, M., Luchsinger, L., Hillyer, C. D., Caskey, M., Robbiani, D. F., Rice, C. M., Nussenzweig, M. C., Hatziioannou, T., & Bieniasz, P. D.
Affiliations
  • Rockefeller University (US)
  • Laboratory of Molecular Immunology The Rockefeller University, New York, United States
  • New York Blood Center (US)
  • Institute for Research in Biomedicine (CH)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
  • Laboratory of Retrovirology, The Rockefeller University, New York, United States
Corresponding author
  • Nussenzweig, Michel C
  • Bieniasz, Paul D
Venue
eLife
Published
2020-10-28
Volume
9
ISSN
2050-084X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3096064145
Cited by
1,308
References
55
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 82 · 2023: 151 · 2022: 393 · 2021: 583 · 2020: 48
FWCI
38.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R37AI64003, R01AI078788, P01AI138398-S1, R01AI091707-10S1, 2U19AI111825)
  • George Mason University (Fast Grant)
  • European ATAC Consortium (EC101003650)
  • National Institutes of Health (UL1 TR001866)
  • G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation
  • Robert S. Wennett Post-Doctoral Fellowship
  • Shapiro-Silverberg Fund (Advancement of Translational Research)
  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (Investigators)
  • National Institute of General Medical Sciences (T32GM007739)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › vaccines and immunoinformatics approaches
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Animal Science and Zoology › Animal Virus Infections Studies
Keywords
SARS-CoV-2, spike protein variants, neutralizing antibodies, antibody resistance, receptor-binding domain mutations, monoclonal antibodies, convalescent plasma, antibody escape, passive immunization, antibody combinations, epitope diversity

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review