Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan-Dec;14(1):2133666.
doi: 10.1080/19420862.2022.2133666.

Pandemic's silver lining

Affiliations

Pandemic's silver lining

Fortunato Ferrara et al. MAbs. 2022 Jan-Dec.

Abstract

The intense international focus on the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to use a wide array of novel tools to carry out scientific studies on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The value of these comparative studies extends far beyond their consequences for SARS-CoV-2, providing broad implications for health-related science. Here we specifically discuss the impacts of these comparisons on advances in vaccines, the analysis of host humoral immunity, and antibody discovery. As an extension, we also discuss potential synergies between these areas.Abbreviations: CoVIC: The Coronavirus Immunotherapeutic Consortium; EUA: Emergency Use Authorization.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; monoclonal antibodies; vaccines.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

AART and CLL received financing from Specifica Inc. SD, MFE, FF, LPS, LN, EM, TM, ADA, KP, and ARMB are employed by Specifica Inc.

Figures

The figure shows that 22 neutralizing antibodies with different HCDR3 sequences nevertheless bind to the same epitope on the Receptor Binding Domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and that their structures overlap with each other, and also bind at the same site bound by ACE2.
Figure 1.
a) A cartoon representation of 22 antibodies binding to the “neck” of SARS-CoV-2 RBD (salmon), with b) showing ACE-2 (turquoise) binding at the same site. c) The CDRH3 sequences represented across the 22 RBD ‘neck’-binding antibodies. Lenient VH-clonotypes are separated with solid lines, with the cluster representative highlighted in bold font (derived from Robinson et al.).

References

    1. Wrapp D, Wang N, Corbett KS, Goldsmith JA, Hsieh C-L, Abiona O, Graham BS, McLellan JS.. Cryo-EM structure of the 2019-nCoV spike in the prefusion conformation. Science. 2020;367(6483):1260–5. doi:10.1126/science.abb2507 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Amanat F, Stadlbauer D, Strohmeier S, Nguyen THO, Chromikova V, McMahon M, Jiang K, Arunkumar GA, Jurczyszak D, Polanco J, et al. A serological assay to detect SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion in humans. Nat Med. 2020;26(7):1033–36. doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0913-5 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baum A, Fulton BO, Wloga E, Copin R, Pascal KE, Russo V, Giordano S, Lanza K, Negron N, Ni M, et al. Antibody cocktail to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein prevents rapid mutational escape seen with individual antibodies. Science. 2020;369(6506):1014–18. doi:10.1126/science.abd0831 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brouwer PJM, Caniels TG, van der Straten K, Snitselaar JL, Aldon Y, Bangaru S, Torres JL, Okba NMA, Claireaux M, Kerster G, et al. Potent neutralizing antibodies from COVID-19 patients define multiple targets of vulnerability. Science. 2020;369(6504):643–50. doi:10.1126/science.abc5902 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hoffmann M, Kleine-Weber H, Schroeder S, Kruger N, Herrler T, Erichsen S, Schiergens TS, Herrler G, Wu N-H, Nitsche A, et al. SARS-CoV-2 cell entry depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and is blocked by a clinically proven protease inhibitor. Cell. 2020;181(2):271–80 e8. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2020.02.052 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Substances