{"doi":"10.26508/lsa.202201415","title":"SARS-CoV-2 spike E156G/Δ157-158 mutations contribute to increased infectivity and immune escape","abstract":"Breakthrough infections by emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants raise significant concerns. Here, we sequence-characterized the spike gene from breakthrough infections that corresponded to B.1.617 sublineage. Delineating the functional impact of spike mutations revealed that N-terminal domain (NTD)-specific E156G/Δ157-158 contributed to increased infectivity and reduced sensitivity to vaccine-induced antibodies. A six-nucleotide deletion (467-472) in the spike-coding region introduced this change in the NTD. We confirmed the presence of E156G/Δ157-158 from cases concurrently screened, in addition to other circulating spike (S1) mutations such as T19R, T95I, L452R, E484Q, and D614G. Notably, E156G/Δ157-158 was present in more than 90% of the sequences reported from the USA and UK in October 2021. The spike-pseudotyped viruses bearing a combination of E156G/Δ157-158 and L452R exhibited higher infectivity and reduced sensitivity to neutralization. Notwithstanding, the post-recovery plasma robustly neutralized viral particles bearing the mutant spike. When the spike harbored E156G/Δ157-158 along with L452R and E484Q, increased cell-to-cell fusion was also observed, suggesting a combinatorial effect of these mutations. Our study underscores the importance of non-RBD changes in determining infectivity and immune escape.","journal":"Life Science Alliance","year":2022,"id":246282,"datarank":1.4277438226074888,"base_score":3.713572066704308,"endowment":3.713572066704308,"self_citation_contribution":0.5570358100056463,"citation_network_contribution":0.8707080126018425,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5570358100056463,"citer_contribution":0.8707080126018425,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":40,"citer_count":37,"citers_with_citation_signal":31,"citers_with_endowment":31,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9474,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"PDB":["7DF3","6XEY","7C2L","7JJI","7LXY","7LY2"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":811683,"name":"Rishikesh Dalavi","orcid":"0000-0001-6897-4424","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811681,"name":"Garima Joshi","orcid":"0000-0003-0775-8861","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811682,"name":"Atul Kumar","orcid":"0000-0001-6839-2299","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":364209,"name":"Pankaj Pandey","orcid":"0000-0001-9128-8254","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811684,"name":"Sanjeev Shukla","orcid":"0000-0003-3361-0588","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811685,"name":"Ram Kumar Mishra","orcid":"0000-0002-9528-0476","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":316635,"name":"Ajit Chande","orcid":"0000-0003-2210-5180","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811680,"name":"Tarun Mishra","orcid":"0000-0002-0968-5654","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:23:43.438539Z","pmid":"35296517","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}