Circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.7, 501Y.V2, and P.1 have gained ability to utilize rat and mouse Ace2 and altered in vitro sensitivity to neutralizing antibodies and ACE2-Ig

Africa, America, Animals, B.1.1.7, B.1.351, Brazil, Coronavirus, England, Europe, Health, Infection, Mutation, N501Y, P.1, Reinfection, Science, Scotland, South Africa, UK, Vaccine, Variants, Wales

Here, we first investigated cross-species receptor usage of multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants that emerged during the pandemic. We found that, in contrast to an early isolate WHU01, the circulating variants B.1.1.7/501Y.V1, B.1.351/501Y.V2, and P.1/501Y.V3 were able to use rat and mouse Ace2 orthologs as entry receptors, suggesting that rats and mice might be able to harbor and spread these variants.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.27.428353v2

 

Image by Karsten Paulick from Pixabay

** This post was originally published on February 1, 2021 **