Mutation in SARS-CoV-2 Variant Does Not Affect Vaccine: Study

An engineered coronavirus with the N501Y mutation—one of many mutations present in the emerging B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 variants of the coronavirus—is neutralized by the sera of COVID-19 vaccine recipients.

Written byKerry Grens

| 2 min read

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ABOVE: A patient cell infected with SARS-CoV-2
FLICKR, NIAID

Serum samples from 20 individuals who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 thwarted a version of the coronavirus with the so-called N501Y mutation, according to a preprint posted to bioRxiv yesterday (January 7). This mutation is one of many sequence changes present in the B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 variants of SARS-CoV-2 that were first detected in the UK and South Africa, respectively, and are now rapidly spreading around the world.

“There’s no reason to think the vaccines won’t work just as well on these strains,” Frederic Bushman of the University of Pennsylvania who tracks how the virus mutates and was not involved in the work, tells the Associated Press. But he adds that the study only examined one mutation and the B.1.1.7 and 501.V2 variants have many more mutations that were not tested.

N501Y resides within the coronavirus’s spike protein that enables entry ...

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Meet the Author

Kerry Grens
Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.
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