New research shows that coronavirus mutations could complicate vaccine development
A group of scientists, including a team from Duke University, has found that the novel coronavirus has mutated into a new strain that might be more contagious than the original one that emerged from Wuhan, China late last year — potentially complicating the search for a vaccine.
The new study found that the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the U.S. is actually one that first appeared in Europe in February, but has since become more widespread than the original strain causing COVID-19.
The study, posted on BioRxiv, a repository for researchers to post work before it is peer reviewed, raises questions about whether vaccines based on the first strain of COVID-19 will be effective against this new, more dominant strain.
The mutation of the coronavirus appears to be happening on its spike protein, which is worrisome because that is what current vaccines are targeting, said David Montefiori, the director of the Laboratory for AIDS Vaccine Research at Duke University and a contributor to the new study.
“My concern is that it is possible that the vaccines that are being developed right now and tested in clinical trials might not work as well against this form of the virus compared to the original virus,” he said in a phone interview.
“That is a possibility, but we don’t have an answer” yet, he added. “My lab is as quickly as possible evaluating that — to determine whether this second variant has changed in such a way that the vaccine might need to be modified to protect against both forms of the virus.”
The good news is that the new strain of the virus does not appear more dangerous, Montefiori noted.
Montefiori has researched HIV vaccine development for 30 years, and he said much of the technology in his lab can be deployed against the coronavirus.
He said viruses mutate naturally, but the direction in which they mutate varies. Their “goal” is to become more transmittable, but sometimes the mutation is less contagious.
“Sometimes they will mutate to be less transmissible,” he said, “but in this case it went the other way.”
In addition to Duke University, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the University of Sheffield in England contributed to the study.
The original strain of the coronavirus traveled from Wuhan to Washington state in January — but the outbreaks on the East Coast came from the mutated European strain. The study shows that the European version of the virus has become more widespread in the U.S. than the one that first showed up in Washington state.
If the virus has “drifted away” enough from the original strain, Montefiori said, it could mean that it will take longer for scientists to create a vaccine effective against it.
The mutation doesn’t mean that promising treatments, like remdesivir, will be less effective, because they are not targeting the mutated spike protein, Montefiori noted. But vaccines that prevent the infection could be vulnerable.
“To my knowledge all of the vaccines that are being developed are tested on the Wuhan strain,” he said.
The study notes that it is unclear how the virus will change in coming months and whether it will wane as temperatures and humidity rise. If it doesn’t wane during the summer, the virus could “drift” further from the original strain.
“If the pandemic fails to wane, this could exacerbate the potential for ... mutations in the population during the year or more it will take to deliver the first vaccine,” the authors of the study write. “Such a scenario is plausible, and by attending to this risk now, we may be able avert missing important evolutionary transitions in the virus that if ignored could ultimately limit the effectiveness of the first vaccines to clinical use.”
Montefiori said the new strains could be added to existing vaccines relatively quickly, if needed. His lab hopes to have some insight on whether existing vaccines are effective against the new strain in a couple of months.
If the mutation is different enough, the study adds, people who developed immunity to one strain might not be immune to the other.
“We don’t have an answer to that,” Montefiori said.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
