Poster Presentation 8th Australasian Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics Development Meeting 2020

Human neutralising antibodies elicited by SARS-CoV-2 non-D614G variants offer cross-protection against the SARS-CoV-2 D614G variant (#314)

Cheryl Yi-Pin Lee 1 , Siti Naqiah Amrun 1 , Rhonda Chee 1 , Yun Shan Goh 1 , Tze-Minn Mak 2 , Sophie Octavia 2 , Nicholas Yeo 1 , Zi Wei Chang 1 , Matthew Tay 1 , Anthony Torres 1 , Guillaume Carissimo 1 , Chek Meng Poh 1 , Siew-Wai Fong 1 , Bei Wang 3 , Sandy Lee 3 , Barnaby Young 2 , Seow-Yen Tan 4 , Yee-Sin Leo 2 , David Lye 2 , Raymond Lin 2 , Sebastian Maurer-Stroh 1 , Bernett Lee 1 , Cheng-I Wang 3 , Laurent Renia 1 , Lisa Ng 1
  1. Infectious Diseases Horizontal Technology Centre ID HTC, Singapore
  2. National Centre for Infectious Diseases, 16 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore 308442, Singapore
  3. Singapore Immunology Network, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Immunos, Biopolis, Singapore 138648, Singapore
  4. Department of Infectious Diseases, Changi General Hospital, 2 Simei Street 3, Singapore 529889, Singapore

Random mutations in the viral genome is a naturally occurring event that may lead to enhanced viral fitness and immunological resistance, while heavily impacting the validity of licensed therapeutics. A single point mutation from aspartic acid (D) to glycine (G) at position 614 of the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein, termed D614G, has garnered global attention due to the observed increase in transmissibility and infection rate. Given that a majority of the developing antibody-mediated therapies and serological assays are based on the S antigen of the original Wuhan reference sequence, it is crucial to determine if humoral immunity acquired from the original SARS-CoV-2 isolate is able to induce cross-detection and cross-protection against the novel prevailing D614G variant. In this study, profiling of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity reveals similar neutralisation profiles against both S protein variants, albeit waning neutralising antibody capacity at the later phase of infection. These findings provide further insights towards the validity of current immune-based interventions.