Identification of broad neutralizing antibodies against Omicron subvariants from COVID-19 convalescents and vaccine recipients

Dear Editor,Omicron(B.1.1.529)was designated a variant of concern(VOC)on November 26,2021(Callaway,2021),and its subvariants BA.1,BA.2,and BA.3 emerged and circulated almost simultaneously(Desingu et al.,2022).BA.2 was more efficient in transmission and quickly overtook BA.1 to become the variant most frequently detected worldwide(Yamasoba et al.,2022a).Compared to the prototype SARS-CoV-2 spike protein(S),the BA.1 and BA.2 spike proteins harbor more than 30 mutations,of which 21 are identical between the two subvariants,while the BA.3 spike differs from BA.1 and BA.2 by 3 mutations in the receptor binding domain(RBD)(Fig.1A).More recently,BA.4 and BA.5(hereafter BA.4/5)emerged,sharing the same spike sequence and containing four additional mutations,Del69–70,L452R,F486V,and R493Q,compared with BA.2.BA.4/5 were detected first in South Africa and evolved independently of BA.2;they have spread widely and replaced BA.2 as the predominant VOC(Gruell et al.,2022b;Tegally et al.,2022).In addition,BA.2.75,derived from the BA.2 subvariant,harbors nine additional mutations in the spike protein compared with BA.2(Fig.1A).BA.4/5 and BA.2.75 have led to the continuous emergence of novel Omicron subvariants,including BF.7 and BQ.1.These new subvariants may be driving waves of pandemics.