I would like to exchange scientific opinions and evidence on the intriguing question of the potential reduced antigenicity of the COVID-19 virus over time. Could it be an overall advantage or a disadvantage for us? Could it be more difficult to find a vaccines and antibodies due to genetic drift of SARS-CoV-2?
If SARS-COV-2 changes quickly and new therapies reduce the incidence, finding a vaccine will be very difficult.
Sure, there will be a vaccine, but it will take longer
The genetic variation of the virus will make it difficult to develop a vaccine and make it take longer
Rahem Alziadi I am grateful for your speech! I am optimistic and I agree with you!
COVID-19 vaccines may Need to be updated yearly by incorporating all the mutations in SARS-CoV-2 globally in the previous year.
New mutations and genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 will reduce the efficacy of any potential COVID-19 vaccine just like for seasonal influenza.
In that case, there may be need to prepare vaccines yearly incorporating all the mutations in SARS-CoV-19 globally, to use it for the next year, as is being done for Influenza vaccine.
HOPE WE ARE NOT COUNTING THE CHICKEN BEFORE EVEN THE EGGS ARE HATCHED. (Lets first wait for an effective COVID-19 vaccine to be available!)
Muhammad Yousuf Very good point! Thank you! Currently, we still do not know the time window to consider for updating potential vaccines: years? months? other?... However, your considerations are fully acceptable.
So far there are no indications of new strains of Covid 19 virus or or any major antigenic changes. Covid 19 virus is not like influenza viruses, which have segmented RNA, responsible for antigenic shift. Antigenic shift causes a major change in HA or NA antigens. Antigenic drift is caused by small mutations that happen all the time in all viruses. Usually these changes don't need a new vaccine strain. But several antigenic drifts, sometimes over the years, can result into changing the influenza strain in the seasonal flu vaccine.
Rajesh K Gupta Thanks a lot for all these comments and food for thought. Overall, we still know little about the genetic drift of the virus..
Although SARS-CoV-2 spike protein displayed high homology toward that of SARS-CoV, the novel epitopes contributed to 85.3% of all the antibody epitopes, 85.7% of the RBD antibody epitopes, and 90.9% of the high-score antibody epitopes in SARS-CoV-2, implying remarkable alterations in the antigenicity. These results might explain why most of the antibodies against SRAS-CoV spike protein were invalidated for SARS-CoV-2 and indicate the necessity to develop new antibodies and vaccines specific for SARS-CoV-2. Novel and high-score antibody epitopes for SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and their RBD locations are analyzed, which should be potent ,and specific targets for developing antibody drugs and vaccines of SARS-CoV-2 in the future. Antigenicity of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is remarkably dominated and altered by novel antibody epitopes, which provides promising leads for development of vaccine for SARS-CoV-2
Reji Joseph Thank you very much for your contribution! These are really interesting data! Please, could you give us some bibliographical references?
Attenuated antigenicity is bound to develop which will help in the control of the current pandemic.
But the risk of future resurgence will remain.
Vaccine development will also be hindered to a large extent and the regular search for a new vaccine according to the virus will remain.
For influenza, we develop a new vaccine yearly.
Only time will tell how frequently we will need to work for a new covid vaccine
We should have parallel lines of vaccination and treatment of clinical symptoms, esp. because the causes of death is not clearly understood yet.
The article below shows a possible pathway of designing peptide vaccine candidates from the least mutated regions in the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.
Article New Computational Approach for Peptide Vaccine Design Agains...