Characteristics of the SARS-CoV-2 omicron HK.3 variant harbouring the FLip substitution.

Competing Interests: JI has received consulting fees and honoraria for lectures from Takeda Pharmaceutical. KSat has received consulting fees from Moderna Japan and Takeda Pharmaceutical and has received honoraria for lectures from Gilead Sciences, Moderna Japan, and Shionogi & Co. All other authors declare no competing interests. YKo, AP, and OP contributed equally. This work was supported in part by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)Strategic Center of Biomedical Advanced Vaccine Research and Development for Preparedness and Response (SCARDA)Japan Initiative for World-leading Vaccine Research and Development Centers UTOPIA (JP223fa627001, to KSat), AMED SCARDA Programme on R&D of New Generation Vaccine including New Modality Application (JP223fa727002, to KSat); AMED Research Programme on Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases (JP22fk0108146, to KSat; JP21fk0108494, to G2P-Japan Consortium and KSat; JP21fk0108425, to KSat; JP21fk0108432, to KSat; JP22fk0108511, to G2P-Japan Consortium and KSat; JP22fk0108516, to KSat; JP22fk0108506, to KSat); AMED Research Programme on HIV/AIDS (JP22fk0410039, to KSat); JST PRESTO (JPMJPR22R1, to JI); JST CREST (JPMJCR20H4, to KSat); JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists (23K14526, to JI); JSPS Core-to-Core Program (A. Advanced Research Networks) (JPJSCCA20190008, to KSat); JSPS Research Fellow DC2 (22J11578, to KU); JSPS Research Fellow DC1 (23KJ0710, to YKo); The Tokyo Biochemical Research Foundation (to KSat); and The Mitsubishi Foundation (to KSat). Members of the G2P-Japan Consortium are listed in the appendix (p 18).