A trio of papers describe newly discovered human antibodies that target the SARS-CoV-2 virus, isolated from survivors of SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV.
Several of these showed protective, neutralising capabilities, offering promising therapeutic leads, and eight antibodies from one analysis were discovered to cross-react with a related bat-specific coronavirus – with implications for the identification of broadly neutralising antibodies to protect against potential future coronavirus outbreaks.
Philip Brouwer and colleagues isolated 403 monoclonal antibodies from three convalescent COVID-19 patients, showing that the patients had strong immune responses against the viral spike.
Thomas Rogers and colleagues used a high-throughput pipeline to isolate and characterise monoclonal antibodies from convalescent donors, selecting for antibodies that bind to the viral spike. Anna Wec and colleagues isolated and characterised hundreds of antibodies against the viral spike of SARS-CoV-2 from the memory B cells of a SARS-CoV survivor.
