Evidence for adaptive evolution in the receptor-binding domain of seasonal coronaviruses OC43 and 229e
By K. Kistler, Trevor Bedford. 2020
99 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Seasonal coronaviruses (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are endemic to the human population, regularly infecting and reinfecting humans while typically causing asymptomatic to mild respiratory infections. It is not known to what extent reinfection by these viruses is due to waning immune memory or antigenic drift of the viruses. Here, we address the influence of antigenic drift on immune evasion of seasonal coronaviruses. We provide evidence that at least two of these viruses, OC43 and 229E, are undergoing adaptive evolution in regions of the viral spike protein that are exposed to human humoral immunity. This suggests that reinfection may be due, in part, to positively-selected genetic changes in these viruses that enable them to escape recognition by the immune system. It is possible that, as with seasonal influenza, these adaptive changes in antigenic regions of the virus would necessitate continual reformulation of a vaccine made against them.
Subfields: Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Molecular Biology
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Citations in the corpus
- Comprehensive mapping of mutations to the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain that affect recognition by polyclonal human serum antibodies (2021, background): “This antigenic evolution is driven by positive selection for mutations in the viral spike, particularly in regions involved in receptor binding (Kistler and Bedford, 2020; Wong et al., 2017).”
- A human coronavirus evolves antigenically to escape antibody immunity (2020, background): “The ladder-like shape of the 229E phylogeny has been noted previously [26,27,40], and is a signature of viruses such as influenza for which immune pressure drives population turnover by selecting for antigenic variants [41–43].”