Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Nat Rev Genet. 2021 Dec;22(12):757-773. doi: 10.1038/s41576-021-00408-x. Epub 2021 Sep 17.
The past several months have witnessed the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with novel spike protein mutations that are influencing the epidemiological and clinical aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These variants can increase rates of virus transmission and/or increase the risk of reinfection and reduce the protection afforded by neutralizing monoclonal antibodies and vaccination. These variants can therefore enable SARS-CoV-2 to continue its spread in the face of rising population immunity while maintaining or increasing its replication fitness. The identification of four rapidly expanding virus lineages since December 2020, designated variants of concern, has ushered in a new stage of the pandemic. The four variants of concern, the Alpha variant (originally identified in the UK), the Beta variant (originally identified in South Africa), the Gamma variant (originally identified in Brazil) and the Delta variant (originally identified in India), share several mutations with one another as well as with an increasing number of other recently identified SARS-CoV-2 variants. Collectively, these SARS-CoV-2 variants complicate the COVID-19 research agenda and necessitate additional avenues of laboratory, epidemiological and clinical research.
过去几个月见证了具有新型刺突蛋白突变的 SARS-CoV-2 变体的出现，这些突变正在影响 COVID-19 大流行的流行病学和临床方面。这些变体可以增加病毒传播的速度和/或增加再次感染的风险，并降低中和单克隆抗体和疫苗接种提供的保护。因此，这些变体可以使 SARS-CoV-2 在人群免疫力上升的情况下继续传播，同时保持或增加其复制适应性。自 2020 年 12 月以来，发现了四个迅速扩张的病毒谱系，被指定为关注变体，这标志着大流行进入了一个新阶段。这四种关注变体，即 Alpha 变体（最初在英国发现）、Beta 变体（最初在南非发现）、Gamma 变体（最初在巴西发现）和 Delta 变体（最初在印度发现），彼此之间以及与越来越多的其他最近发现的 SARS-CoV-2 变体共享多个突变。这些 SARS-CoV-2 变体共同使 COVID-19 研究议程复杂化，并需要实验室、流行病学和临床研究的其他途径。
