​This COVID variant can infect the lower lungs and cause severe disease symptoms​

So far, we have learned that the new COVID variants can spread faster and can escape the immune system easily. However, a recent study has shed light on something more serious. As per a study published in the journal Cell, one of the new COVID variants which is dominant in several countries right now, can infect human cells that line the lower lung and engage in virus-host cell membrane fusion more efficiently, two features linked to severe disease symptoms.

The researchers have studied Pirola or the BA.2.86 which is the ancestor of JN.1 variant. The BA.2.86 variant of omicron is the ancestor of the currently dominating JN.1 and has about 60 more spike protein mutations than the original, or parent, coronavirus, including over 30 more than its close omicron relatives – the early BA.2 variant and the recently dominant XBB.1.5 variant among them. These mutations led scientists to worry that so many changes would make the variant as tough to contain as the initial omicron outbreak in 2021-22.

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"BA.2.86 appears to have increased infectivity of human lung epithelial cells compared to all omicron variants, so that’s a little worrisome. And, consistent with infectivity, it also has increased fusion activity with human lung epithelial cells,” said Liu, also a professor in the Department of Microbial Infection and Immunity. “That raises a potential concern about whether or not this virus is more pathogenic compared to recent omicron variants.”

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BA.2.86 and its sublineages, the most dominant among which is JN.1 are spreading rapidly across countries. The World Health Organization has classified BA.2.86 and sublineages as “variants of interest.” In the US, JN.1, a derived sublineage of BA.2.86 is responsible for 62% of the COVID cases.

According to Shan-Lu Liu, senior author the study and a virology professor in the Department of Veterinary Biosciences at The Ohio State University, "People who have had a COVID-19 infection should remember that omicron variants are less virulent compared to prior variants such as delta, meaning they don’t make most people very sick. If you have less severe disease, the antibodies generated by infection are low – almost 10-fold lower than vaccine-induced antibodies. That is why you cannot rely on natural infection alone for immunity."

“We know that coronaviruses are prone to viral recombination, which can lead to new variants with huge numbers of mutations that could have increased immune evasion but also disease severity,” Liu said. “That’s why surveillance of the variants is still very important, even though we are in the end of year four of the pandemic.” He also said that JN.1 variant, more than 800 cases of which are found in India, is much more resistant to neutralizing antibodies that are effective against BA.2.86.