Koyama Takahiko, Weeraratne Dilhan, Snowdon Jane L, Parida Laxmi
TJ Watson Research Center, IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA.
Center for Artificial Intelligence, Research, and Evaluation, IBM, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Pathogens. 2020 Apr 26;9(5):324. doi: 10.3390/pathogens9050324.
New coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) treatments and vaccines are under development to combat COVID-19. Several approaches are being used by scientists for investigation, including (1) various small molecule approaches targeting RNA polymerase, 3C-like protease, and RNA endonuclease; and (2) exploration of antibodies obtained from convalescent plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19. The coronavirus genome is highly prone to mutations that lead to genetic drift and escape from immune recognition; thus, it is imperative that sub-strains with different mutations are also accounted for during vaccine development. As the disease has grown to become a pandemic, B-cell and T-cell epitopes predicted from SARS coronavirus have been reported. Using the epitope information along with variants of the virus, we have found several variants which might cause drifts. Among such variants, 23403A>G variant (p.D614G) in spike protein B-cell epitope is observed frequently in European countries, such as the Netherlands, Switzerland, and France, but seldom observed in China.
新型冠状病毒（SARS-CoV-2）的治疗方法和疫苗正在研发中，以对抗新冠肺炎。科学家们正在采用多种方法进行研究，包括：（1）针对RNA聚合酶、3C样蛋白酶和RNA内切酶的各种小分子方法；以及（2）探索从新冠肺炎康复患者的康复血浆中获得的抗体。冠状病毒基因组极易发生突变，导致基因漂移并逃避免疫识别；因此，在疫苗研发过程中，考虑不同突变的亚毒株也至关重要。随着该疾病发展成为大流行病，已报道了从严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒预测的B细胞和T细胞表位。利用表位信息以及病毒变体，我们发现了几个可能导致漂移的变体。在这些变体中，刺突蛋白B细胞表位中的23403A>G变体（p.D614G）在荷兰、瑞士和法国等欧洲国家经常出现，但在中国很少见。
