Omicron Variant (B.1.1.529): Infectivity, Vaccine Breakthrough, and Antibody Resistance

The
latest severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
variant Omicron (B.1.1.529) has ushered panic responses around the
world due to its contagious and vaccine escape mutations. The essential
infectivity and antibody resistance of the SARS-CoV-2 variant are
determined by its mutations on the spike (S) protein receptor-binding
domain (RBD). However, a complete experimental evaluation of Omicron
might take weeks or even months. Here, we present a comprehensive
quantitative analysis of Omicron’s infectivity, vaccine breakthrough,
and antibody resistance. An artificial intelligence (AI) model, which
has been trained with tens of thousands of experimental data and
extensively validated by experimental results on SARS-CoV-2, reveals
that Omicron may be over 10 times more contagious than the original
virus or about 2.8 times as infectious as the Delta variant. On the
basis of 185 three-dimensional (3D) structures of antibody–RBD
complexes, we unveil that Omicron may have an 88% likelihood to escape
current vaccines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved
monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) from Eli Lilly may be seriously compromised.
Omicron may also diminish the efficacy of mAbs from AstraZeneca, Regeneron
mAb cocktail, Celltrion, and Rockefeller University. However, its
impacts on GlaxoSmithKline’s sotrovimab appear to be mild.
Our work calls for new strategies to develop the next generation mutation-proof
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and antibodies.