Scientists: A mutation in the coronavirus protein bypasses antibodies

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PHOTO: Pixabay

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The emergence of new variants of SARS-CoV-2 with mutations in the S-protein that confer resistance may jeopardize the effectiveness of vaccines, scientists from the University of Göttingen, Germany said. Their study was published in the journal Nature.

The authors of the article investigated the penetration into cells with antibodies of the coronavirus variant A.30 (also known as A.VOI.V2), which probably originated in Tanzania and is now considered obsolete. In the spring of 2021, it was found in only a few patients in Angola and Sweden.

According to German researchers, some mutations in the “spiky” protein SARS-CoV-2 allow the virus to ignore antibodies and spread extrapulmonary, which significantly increases the possibility of infection, BGNES reports.

“A.30 shows a preference for the cell line, which is not observed in other viral variants, and effectively avoids the neutralization of antibodies caused by vaccines ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 or BNT162b2 (drugs from AstraZeneca and Pfizer, respectively), the researchers wrote. that the mutations in variant A.30 need careful monitoring and rapid countermeasures.

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