EuGeni, page-2032

Hi RP,

As far as I know, the answer is: "no-one knows yet." But I imagine the testing is being carried out as I type this.

Anteo's test uses anibodies to latch onto part of the nucleocapsid protein from the virus. The protein is made up of amino acids, which take a certain 3-D shape that fits the antibodies.
So, in order for Anteo's test to NOT work for Omicron, it's nucleocapsid protein would have to be changed in shape such that the antibodies don't bind to it.
We know that Omicron has lots of mutations of its RNA sequence (I think about 30 ??) that make it different to Delta. I don't know if these are enough to induce a shape change or not.

BUT: I do recall hearing that at least one PCR test that worked for Delta would not work for Omicron. That test must have had primers that were affected by an Omicron mutation, so no RNA amplification could take place. They would have to design and make new primers (a relatively straightforward job once you have the sequence.)

Cheers,
FHC