Adapt or perish: SARS-CoV-2 antibody escape variants defined by deletions in the Spike N-terminal Domain
Marta Ribes, Carlos Chaccour, Gemma Moncunill
Abstract
In a recent report in Science, McCarthy et al. promptly observed a pattern of recurrent deletions in four discrete regions of the Nterminal Domain (NTD) of the Spike protein, which provide resistance to antibody neutralization, suggesting convergent evolution due to selective pressure and antigenic drift. A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the rollout of vaccines opens a window of hope to end transmission in many countries, yet, recent concerns have arisen due to the SARS-CoV-2's gambits to escape the immune system and to sustain its spread. 2 Given that coronaviruses encode an exoribonuclease that provides a proofreading function during the replication, the appearance of variants was at first expected to be marginal. McCarthy's work anticipated the events, as these deletions were found to be present in some of the lineages causing now a global concern.