IIT Madras study predicts retained efficacy of spike protein vaccines against coronavirus variants
India Today
The results of the IIT Madras study suggest that the attack by selected variants – Delta plus, Gamma, Zeta, Mink and Omicron – may be dealt with by vaccine-induced T-cell responses despite the compromised neutralising antibodies responses.
Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) researchers have shown that spike protein vaccines may be effective against multiple variants of Coronavirus (SARS COV-2).
The results of the IIT Madras study suggest that the attack by selected variants Delta plus, Gamma, Zeta, Mink and Omicron may be dealt with by vaccine-induced T-cell responses despite the compromised neutralising antibodies responses.
While further experimental verification is called for, the researchers believe that the present spike protein vaccinations are likely to be efficacious against circulating variants of Coronavirus (SARS COV-2).
The researchers set out to find out what the response would be like if the post-vaccination infections were caused by a variant other than the original Wuhan strain incorporated in vaccine preparations. In variants of SARS COV-2, there are molecular level changes to the spike protein of the virus, and these variations may include the regions of protein sequences that are recognized by T-cells called epitopes.
Understanding the effect of these variations on the immune response can give some clarity about the efficacy of vaccination against the variants of SARS COV- 2.
The research was led by Dr Vani Janakiraman, Assistant Professor, Department of Biotechnology, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, IIT Madras.
The results of this computational study have recently been published in the reputed peer-reviewed journal BBA - Molecular Basis of Disease (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbadis.2022.166432), in a paper co-authored by S Sankaranarayanan and Mugdha Mohkhedkar, Students from the Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, and Dr Vani Janakiraman.
