First Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5/22B in Monaco - Aix-Marseille Université Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Microorganisms Année : 2022

First Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5/22B in Monaco

Résumé

The Omicron BA.5/22B variant has been designated as a “variant of concern” by the World Health Organization. We describe, here, the first evidence in Monaco of infection with an Omicron BA.5/22B variant, probably imported from the Republic of Seychelles, harboring a rare combination of non-BA.5/22B signature amino acid changes. SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies were measured with a surrogate virus neutralization test. SARS-CoV-2 genotype screening was performed on nasopharyngeal samples with a multiplex qPCR assay. The SARS-CoV-2 genome was obtained by next-generation sequencing with the Illumina COVID-seq protocol, then assembly using bioinformatics pipelines and software was performed. The BA.5/22B spike protein structure was obtained by molecular modeling. Two spouses were SARS-CoV-2-diagnosed the day they returned from a one-week trip in the Republic of Seychelles. SARS-CoV-2 qPCR screening for variant-specific mutations identified an Omicron variant BA.1/21K, BA.4/22A, or BA.5/22B. A SARS-Co-2 BA.5/22B variant genome was recovered from one of the spouses. Aside from BA.5/22B-defining amino acid substitutions, four other amino acid changes were encoded including Q556K in ORF1a, K2557R in ORF1b, and A67V and A829T in spike; only 13 genomes in sequence databases harbored these four mutations concurrently. Structural analysis of this BA.5/22B variant predicted that A829T in spike may result in a compaction that may affect conformational plasticity. Overall, our findings warrant performing genome-based genotypic surveillance to survey accurately the emergence and circulation of SARS-CoV-2 variants worldwide and point out that their first occurrence in a country is often through international travel despite implemented countermeasures.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
microorganisms-10-01952.pdf (1.37 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Licence : CC BY - Paternité

Dates et versions

hal-03951605 , version 1 (26-06-2023)

Licence

Paternité

Identifiants

Citer

Philippe Colson, Christian Lavagna, Jérémy Delerce, Guillaume Groshenry, Nouara Yahi, et al.. First Detection of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.5/22B in Monaco. Microorganisms, 2022, 10 (10), pp.1952. ⟨10.3390/microorganisms10101952⟩. ⟨hal-03951605⟩
22 Consultations
14 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More