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Review
. 2021 Apr 10;17(6):1486-1496.
doi: 10.7150/ijbs.59149. eCollection 2021.

Development and application of therapeutic antibodies against COVID-19

Lin Ning  1 , Hamza B Abagna  2   3 , Qianhu Jiang  2   3 , Siqi Liu  2   3 , Jian Huang  2   3
Affiliations
Review

Development and application of therapeutic antibodies against COVID-19

Lin Ning et al. Int J Biol Sci. .

Abstract

The pandemic of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) continues to be a global health crisis. Fundamental studies at genome, transcriptome, proteome, and interactome levels have revealed many viral and host targets for therapeutic interventions. Hundreds of antibodies for treating COVID-19 have been developed at preclinical and clinical stages in the format of polyclonal antibodies, monoclonal antibodies, and cocktail antibodies. Four products, i.e., convalescent plasma, bamlanivimab, REGN-Cov2, and the cocktail of bamlanivimab and etesevimab have been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use. Hundreds of relevant clinical trials are ongoing worldwide. Therapeutic antibody therapies have been a very active and crucial part of COVID-19 treatment. In this review, we focus on the progress of therapeutic COVID-19 antibody development and application, discuss corresponding problems and challenges, suggesting new strategies and solutions.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; antibody cocktail; convalescent plasma; monoclonal antibody; therapeutic antibody.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Potential targets for antibody development against COVID-19. The life cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and the complex virus-host interactions revealed by genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and interactomics studies present various potential targets for therapeutic interventions. All targets can be grouped into two categories. One is the anti-virus category, such as antibodies target the spike protein to block viral entry. Another is the anti-host category, such as levilimab targets IL-6R to inhibit inflammation. The figure is created with BioRender.com using its editable templates .
Figure 2
Figure 2
REGN-COV2 binds two non-overlapping epitopes on the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. The image is produced with PyMOL based on the PDB structure 6XDG .
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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