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. 2022 Apr;40(7):3129-3131.
doi: 10.1080/07391102.2020.1845801. Epub 2020 Nov 10.

Nanobodies: an unexplored opportunity to combat COVID-19

Sayeh Ezzikouri  1   2 , Jalal Nourlil  3 , Kyoko Tsukiyama-Kohara  2 , Michinori Kohara  4 , Hicham El Ossmani  5 , Marc P Windisch  6 , Soumaya Benjelloun  1
Affiliations

Nanobodies: an unexplored opportunity to combat COVID-19

Sayeh Ezzikouri et al. J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This virus is capable of human-to-human transmission, and is spreading rapidly round the globe, with markedly high fatality rates. Unfortunately, there are neither vaccines nor specific therapies available to combat it, and the developments of such approaches depend on pursuing multiple avenues in biomedical science. Accordingly, in this paper we highlight one such avenue-nanobodies-for potential utility in therapeutic and diagnostic interventions to combat COVID-19.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.

Keywords: Camelid; SARS-CoV-2; diagnostic; heavy-chain antibody; therapeutic.

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Conflict of interest statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Schematic representation of the heavy-chain variable domains (VHHs) generation process and their potential applications as therapeutic agents and as diagnostic tools for COVID-19 pathology. Blood is collected from SARS-CoV-2 antigen-immunized camelids to isolate PBMCs. RNA is extracted from PBMCs followed by RT-PCR to amplify VHH. The VHH DNA sequence is ligated into a phagemid vector and transformed into E. coli. VHH phage display is carried out to isolate SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific clones. After rounds of panning on the antigen of interest, SARS-CoV-2 antigen-specific VHH coding sequence is selected. The identified VHH coding gene is inserted into a yeast expression vector to produce a soluble VHH.
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