SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant emerged under immune selection.
Chee Wah TanWan Ni ChiaFeng ZhuBarnaby Edward YoungNapaporn ChantasrisawadShi-Hsia HwaAileen Ying-Yan YeohBeng Lee LimWee Chee YapSurinder Kaur M S PadaSeow Yen TanWatsamon JantarabenjakulLim Kai TohShiwei ChenJinyan ZhangYun Yan MahVivian Chih-Wei ChenMark I-C ChenSupaporn WacharapluesadeeAlex SigalOpass PutcharoenDavid Chien LyeLin-Fa WangPublished in: Nature microbiology (2022)
The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B.1.1.529 lineage) escapes antibodies that neutralize the ancestral virus. We tested human serum panels from participants with differing infection and vaccination status using a multiplex surrogate virus neutralization assay targeting 20 sarbecoviruses. We found that bat and pangolin sarbecoviruses showed significantly less neutralization escape than the Omicron variant. We propose that SARS-CoV-2 variants have emerged under immune selection pressure and are evolving differently from animal sarbecoviruses.