A team of Japanese researchers have announced that the Mu variant is highly resistant to neutralization by sera from convalescent or vaccinated individuals. The Mu variant is the The B.1.621 variant, first isolated in Colombia in January 2021. The Mu variant has the mutations P681H (first reported in Alpha), E484K and K417N (which can evade antibodies), R346K and Y144T (consequences still unknown and under investigation)
The Japanese team says that this variant was more resistant to neutralization by serum-mediated neutralization than all other variants of interest or concern that have been identified to date.
The team from Tokyo states - “Since breakthrough infection by newly emerging variants is a major concern during the current COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that our findings are of significant public health interest."
They generated and compared different pseudoviruses harboring the spike proteins of B.1.621 or the other variants of concern and interest. Virus neutralization assays revealed that B.1.621 was 12.4 times more resistant to sera taken from eight COVID-19 convalescents who were infected between April and September 2020 than the parental virus was.
The variant was also 7.6 times more resistant to sera obtained from ten individuals who had been immunized with Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2 vaccine compared with the parental virus.
A direct comparison of all the pseudoviruses revealed that B.1.621 was more resistant to serum-mediated neutralization than all of the other currently recognized variants of interest and concern.
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.06.459005
The Japanese team says that this variant was more resistant to neutralization by serum-mediated neutralization than all other variants of interest or concern that have been identified to date.
The team from Tokyo states - “Since breakthrough infection by newly emerging variants is a major concern during the current COVID-19 pandemic, we believe that our findings are of significant public health interest."
They generated and compared different pseudoviruses harboring the spike proteins of B.1.621 or the other variants of concern and interest. Virus neutralization assays revealed that B.1.621 was 12.4 times more resistant to sera taken from eight COVID-19 convalescents who were infected between April and September 2020 than the parental virus was.
The variant was also 7.6 times more resistant to sera obtained from ten individuals who had been immunized with Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2 vaccine compared with the parental virus.
A direct comparison of all the pseudoviruses revealed that B.1.621 was more resistant to serum-mediated neutralization than all of the other currently recognized variants of interest and concern.
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.06.459005
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