Coronaviruses pandemics: Can neutralizing antibodies help?

Abstract

For the first time in Homo sapiens history, possibly, most of human activities is stopped by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Nearly eight billion people of this world are facing a great challenge, maybe not "to be or not to be" yet, but unpredictable. What happens to other major pandemics in the past, and how human beings went through these hurdles? The human body is equipped with the immune system that can recognize, respond and fight against pathogens such as viruses. Following the innate response, immune system processes the adaptive response by which each pathogen is encoded and recorded in memory system. The humoral reaction containing cytokines and antibodies is expected to activate when the pathogens come back. Exploiting this nature of body protection, neutralizing antibodies have been investigated. Learning from past, in parallel to SARS-CoV-2, other coronaviruses SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV who caused previous pandemics, are recalled in this review. We here propose insights of origin and characteristics and perspective for the future of antibodies development.

Keywords: Antibodies; COVID-19; MERS-CoV; SARS-CoV; SARS-CoV-2.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

Isolates of coronaviruses discussed in this review and their receptors, host and reservoirs. SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 from the lineage B use ACE2 as receptor. MERS-CoV from the lineage C enters into host cells by binding DPP4. SARS-CoV has the masked palm civets as an intermediate host in which the virus has adapted from the Chinese Horseshoe bat reservoir to ultimately infect humans [13]. SARS-CoV-2 has bats and pangolins as natural reservoir and can infect ferrets or domestics animals, with a high susceptibility in cats [14]. MERS-CoV has the origin from bats [15] but maybe this virus had an adaptation through camels before its emergence into human [16].

Fig. 2

S protein of SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 with its subdomains are the target of antibodies. The antibodies cited in this review have different origins or techniques, and some of them have specific targets such as the receptor binding domain (RBD) containing the receptor binding motif (RBM), the heptad repeat regions (HR1 and HR2). Some antibodies could bind SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. Background color: Black for SARS-CoV, dark grey for MERS-CoV, grey for SARS-CoV-2. SP: Signal peptide, FP: Fusion peptide, TM: Transmembrane domain, CP: Cytoplasm domain.