ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2023
SARS-CoV-2 variant biology: immune escape, transmission and fitness.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 894 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
894 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 1,351 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of infection prevention and control in the mitigation of human-to-human transmission of Nipah virus: a systematic review.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2025Pooled it
- Safety and immunogenicity of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine administered to adults: A phase 2, randomized, active-controlled trial.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Trial
- Cell-Mediated Immunity of mRNA-1283 Vaccine Encoding SARS-CoV-2 Spike Receptor-Binding and N-Terminal Domains in Preclinical and Clinical Studies.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2026Trial
- Trial
- A booster dose of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine targeting virus variants sustains protective humoral and cellular immunity.BMC medicine · 2025Trial
- Multiplexed detection of febrile infections using CARMEN.Nature communications · 2025Trial
- Effect of Omicron BA.1-based compared to prototype booster mRNA vaccination on incidence of COVID-19 in the COVAIL trial.Vaccine · 2025Trial
- Immunogenicity of fractional and standard dose COVID-19 vaccine boosters among healthy adults in Indonesia: twenty four month follow-up from a randomised controlled trial.Nature communications · 2025Trial
- Receptor binding domain-independent pancoronavirus vaccine design by fusion of conserved T/B Epitopes.Emerging microbes & infections · 2026Article
- Identification of Prohibitin (PHB) as an Entry Factor of Highly Pathogenic Coronaviruses Using Metabolic Glycoengineering and Photo-Crosslinking Techniques.Emerging microbes & infections · 2026Article
- Towards broader-spectrum direct-acting antivirals against RNA viruses.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- The other immune landscape of SARS-CoV-2 evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Targeting of conserved spike epitopes enables broad antibody neutralisation of diverse bat sarbecoviruses.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Fibrinogen as a Molecular Bridge Linking SARS-CoV‑2 Immune Evasion and Endothelial Access?ACS pharmacology & translational science · 2026Article
- Discovery of Highly Selective Noncovalent Macrocyclic Peptide Inhibitors Suppressing Both TMPRSS2 Protease Activity and Viral Receptor Function.Journal of medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- Special Issue "Antiviral Drugs Discovery".International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Targeted FcRn to deliver epitope-optimized RBD confers broad-spectrum mucosal protection against SARS-CoV-2.Molecular therapy. Nucleic acids · 2026Article
- A predictive model for rapid assessment of protective efficacy against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2026Article
- SARS-CoV-2 intra-host variation shows evidence of transmission and convergent evolution in a university surveillance cohort.Microbial genomics · 2026Article
- From sequences to strategies: Early detection of new SARS-CoV-2 variants via genetic distance to reduce hospitalizations.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
834 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In late 2020, after circulating for almost a year in the human population, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) exhibited a major step change in its adaptation to humans. These highly mutated forms of SARS-CoV-2 had enhanced rates of transmission relative to previous variants and were termed 'variants of concern' (VOCs). Designated Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Omicron, the VOCs emerged independently from one another, and in turn each rapidly became dominant, regionally or globally, outcompeting previous variants. The success of each VOC relative to the previously dominant variant was enabled by altered intrinsic functional properties of the virus and, to various degrees, changes to virus antigenicity conferring the ability to evade a primed immune response. The increased virus fitness associated with VOCs is the result of a complex interplay of virus biology in the context of changing human immunity due to both vaccination and prior infection. In this Review, we summarize the literature on the relative transmissibility and antigenicity of SARS-CoV-2 variants, the role of mutations at the furin spike cleavage site and of non-spike proteins, the potential importance of recombination to virus success, and SARS-CoV-2 evolution in the context of T cells, innate immunity and population immunity. SARS-CoV-2 shows a complicated relationship among virus antigenicity, transmission and virulence, which has unpredictable implications for the future trajectory and disease burden of COVID-19.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.