<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>rcxdude</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s because the other parts of the virus are more likely to change over time, because there&amp;#x27;s lots of neutral mutations available: changes which don&amp;#x27;t affect fitness but do affect antibody response. The RBD by contrast is much more constrained: most mutations there result in a virus which can no longer infect cells, so it&amp;#x27;s much less likely to change (though of course any mutations which increase its effectiveness will be heavily selected for). This I think was one of the main reasons the spike protein was targeted by the mRNA viruses.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Ajedi32</author><text>I was confused about that as well. The article suggests that targeting &amp;quot;other portions of the spike protein&amp;quot; (as immune systems previously infected with COVID do) results in the immune system being _less_ robust against variants of the virus than targeting &amp;quot;places on the RBD&amp;quot; (as immune systems exposed to Moderna&amp;#x27;s mRNA vaccine do):&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Specifically, antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. Importantly, the vaccine-elicited antibodies targeted a broader range of places on the RBD than those elicited by natural infection.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; These findings suggest that natural immunity and vaccine-generated immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will differ in how they recognize new viral variants. What’s more, antibodies acquired with the help of a vaccine may be more likely to target new SARS-CoV-2 variants potently, even when the variants carry new mutations in the RBD.&lt;p&gt;Anyone with more experience in immunology care to weigh in on why the second paragraph there follows from the first? Naively, one might expect targeting a wider variety of places on on the COVID spike protein to result in better immunity against variants, not worse. Why is the article saying the opposite?</text></item><item><author>bananabiscuit</author><text>The spike protein targeting antibodies produced by the vaccine do indeed target a wider range of spike mutations than the spike protein antibodies from previous infection. However, vaccines only target spike protein, while a previous infection will cause your body to produce antibodies for a much larger set of targets on the virus, which in practice leads to a more robust immunity. This is supported by data from Israel and some recent studies.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;309762&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;309762&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;310963&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;310963&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection</title><url>https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-generated-from-covid-19-vaccines-differs-from-an-infection/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>rolph</author><text>when you target many epitopes, you are shooting at the 10 inch ring; target one epitope of critical function [put one in center of mass] you are shooting the 2 inch ring.&lt;p&gt;immune systems dont look at everything at once, they find something that sticks and and over trials sharpen the response until highest efficacy of antibody epitope combination is found.&lt;p&gt;the vaccine is like a laser guided munition, natural immunity is like carpet cluster bombing; both highly effective but in different modalities.</text><parent_chain><item><author>Ajedi32</author><text>I was confused about that as well. The article suggests that targeting &amp;quot;other portions of the spike protein&amp;quot; (as immune systems previously infected with COVID do) results in the immune system being _less_ robust against variants of the virus than targeting &amp;quot;places on the RBD&amp;quot; (as immune systems exposed to Moderna&amp;#x27;s mRNA vaccine do):&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Specifically, antibodies elicited by the mRNA vaccine were more focused to the RBD compared to antibodies elicited by an infection, which more often targeted other portions of the spike protein. Importantly, the vaccine-elicited antibodies targeted a broader range of places on the RBD than those elicited by natural infection.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; These findings suggest that natural immunity and vaccine-generated immunity to SARS-CoV-2 will differ in how they recognize new viral variants. What’s more, antibodies acquired with the help of a vaccine may be more likely to target new SARS-CoV-2 variants potently, even when the variants carry new mutations in the RBD.&lt;p&gt;Anyone with more experience in immunology care to weigh in on why the second paragraph there follows from the first? Naively, one might expect targeting a wider variety of places on on the COVID spike protein to result in better immunity against variants, not worse. Why is the article saying the opposite?</text></item><item><author>bananabiscuit</author><text>The spike protein targeting antibodies produced by the vaccine do indeed target a wider range of spike mutations than the spike protein antibodies from previous infection. However, vaccines only target spike protein, while a previous infection will cause your body to produce antibodies for a much larger set of targets on the virus, which in practice leads to a more robust immunity. This is supported by data from Israel and some recent studies.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;309762&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;309762&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;310963&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.israelnationalnews.com&amp;#x2F;News&amp;#x2F;News.aspx&amp;#x2F;310963&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.medrxiv.org&amp;#x2F;content&amp;#x2F;10.1101&amp;#x2F;2021.08.24.21262415v...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Immunity Generated from Covid-19 Vaccines Differs from an Infection</title><url>https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-generated-from-covid-19-vaccines-differs-from-an-infection/</url></story>