Omicron escapes the majority of existing SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 (Omicron) variant contains 15 mutations of the receptor-binding domain (RBD). How Omicron evades RBD-targeted neutralizing antibodies requires immediate investigation. Here we use high-throughput yeast display screening1,2 to determine profiles RBD escaping for 247 human anti-RBD and show that can be classified by unsupervised clustering into six epitope groups (A–F)—a grouping is highly concordant with knowledge-based structural classifications3–5. Various single impair different groups. Specifically, in A–D, epitopes which overlap ACE2-binding motif, are largely escaped K417N, G446S, E484A Q493R. Antibodies group E (for example, S309)6 F CR3022)7, often exhibit broad sarbecovirus activity, less affected Omicron, but a subset still G339D, N440K S371L. Furthermore, pseudovirus neutralization showed sustained could also escaped, owing multiple synergetic on their epitopes. In total, over 85% tested were Omicron. With regard neutralizing-antibody-based drugs, potency LY-CoV016, LY-CoV555, REGN10933, REGN10987, AZD1061, AZD8895 BRII-196 was greatly undermined whereas VIR-7831 DXP-604 functioned at reduced efficacy. Together, our data suggest infection would result considerable humoral immune evasion, targeting conserved region will remain most effective. Our results inform development antibody-based drugs vaccines against future variants. A platform used analyse (RBD) enable escape from antibodies, suggests variant.