New Paper (Other): SARS-CoV-2 escape in vitro from a highly neutralizing COVID-19 convalescent plasma

[marouenbg]

Title: SARS-CoV-2 escape in vitro from a highly neutralizing COVID-19 convalescent plasma

General Information

Please paste a link to the paper or a citation here:

Link: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.28.424451v1

What is the paper's Manubot-style citation?

Citation: @doi:10.1101/2020.12.28.424451

Is this paper primarily relevant to Background or Pathogenesis?

• [ ] Background
• [x] Pathogenesis
• [ ] Methods

Please list some keywords (3-10) that help identify the relevance of this paper to COVID-19

• keyword 1 mutation
• keyword 2 convalescent plasma
• keyword 3 SARS-CoV-2

Please note the publication / review status

• [ ] Pre-print
• [x] New Peer-Reviewed Paper
• [ ] Peer-Reviewed Paper Pre-2020

Which areas of expertise are particularly relevant to the paper?

• [x] virology
• [ ] epidemiology
• [ ] biostatistics
• [x] immunology
• [ ] pharmacology
• [ ] other:

[marouenbg]

Summary

Suggested questions to answer about each paper:

• What did they analyze? The development of SARS-CoV-2 escape mutants in vitro after exposure to neutralizing antibodies.

• What methods did they use? Genomic analysis of in vitro samples and in silico analysis of structure-function of detected mutations on spike protein.

• Does this paper study COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, or a related disease and/or virus? This paper studies the emergence of resistant variants after exposure to convalescent plasma in vitro.

• What is the main finding (or a few main takeaways)? After 7 passages of the virus, the convalescent plasma fully neutralized the virus, but after 45 days, a mutation in the spike N-terminal domain (NTD) N3 loop led to partial breakthrough. At day 73, a substitution in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) occurred, followed at day 80 by an insertion in the NTD loop, which generated a variant completely resistant to plasma neutralization.

• What does this paper tell us about the background and/or diagnostics/therapeutics for COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2? This study suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can escape neutralizing antibody administration from convalescent plasma. This could have implications on antibody cocktail administration and could influence the design of vaccine regimen.

• Do you have any concerns about methodology or the interpretation of these results beyond this analysis? None.

Any comments or notes?

In agreement with #773, this study confirms that convalescent plasma could promote an accelerated evolution of the virus towards resistant escape variants.