Glancing back at SARS-CoV-2: Serological classification

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has exerted a profound influence on the global community over the past few years. As the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to mutate, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic presents significant challenges to public health. The serotype is defined as a distinct variant within a microbial species, characterized by specific immune reactions. It has previously been used to study various pathogens, such as human papillomavirus and dengue virus.SARS-CoV-2 serotype classification has been proposed by different groups recently. At present, the main prevalent variants of the SARS-CoV-2 have been classified into six distinct serotypes. SARS-CoV-2 serotype classification has been applied in areas such as surveillance, early warning, and vaccination, etc. Consequently, we reviewed previous studies and propose further perspectives for future applications of SARS-CoV-2 serotypes classification.

Keywords

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 / Serotype / Classification

Acknowledgments

We thank members of the team of Xin Zhao from the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, for their thoughtful discussions.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFC2604100) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (92269203).

Conflict of interest

Jun Liu is an Editorial Board Member of this journal, but was not in any way involved in the editorial and peer-review process conducted for this paper, directly or indirectly. Separately, the authors declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have influenced the work reported in this paper.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Jun Liu
Writing–original draft: All authors
Writing–review & editing: Jun Liu

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data

Not applicable.

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