Viruses, Vol. 16, Pages 391: Differentiating Cell Entry Potentials of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariants on Human Lung Epithelium Cells

Viruses, Vol. 16, Pages 391: Differentiating Cell Entry Potentials of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Subvariants on Human Lung Epithelium Cells Viruses doi: 10.3390/v16030391 Authors: Revansiddha H. Katte Yuanyun Ao Wang Xu Yang Han Guohua Zhong Dibya Ghimire Jon Florence Torry A. Tucker Maolin Lu The surface spike (S) glycoprotein mediates cell entry of SARS-CoV-2 into the host through fusion at the plasma membrane or endocytosis. Omicron lineages/sublineages have acquired extensive mutations in S to gain transmissibility advantages and altered antigenicity. The fusogenicity, antigenicity, and evasion of Omicron subvariants have been extensively investigated at unprecedented speed to align with the mutation rate of S. Cells that overexpress receptors/cofactors are mostly used as hosts to amplify infection sensitivity to tested variants. However, systematic cell entry comparisons of most prior dominant Omicron subvariants using human lung epithelium cells are yet to be well-studied. Here, with human bronchial epithelium BEAS-2B cells as the host, we compared single-round virus-to-cell entry and cell-to-cell fusion of Omicron BA.1, BA.5, BQ.1.1, CH.1.1, XBB.1.5, and XBB.1.16 based upon split NanoLuc fusion readout assays and the S-pseudotyped lentivirus system. Virus-to-cell entry of tested S variants exhibited cell-type dependence. The parental Omicron BA.1 required more time to develop full entry to HEK293T-ACE2-TMPRSS2 than BEAS-2B cells. Compared to unchanged P...
Source: Viruses - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research