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This ‘super antibody’ for COVID fights off multiple coronaviruses

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2021-07-15 03:00:07

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Scientists have uncovered an antibody that can fight off not only a wide range of SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also closely related coronaviruses1. The discovery could aid the quest to develop broad-ranging treatments and vaccines.

Tyler Starr, a biochemist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, and his co-authors set out to shed light on a problem facing antibody treatments for COVID-19: some variants of SARS-CoV-2 have acquired mutations that enable the virus to escape the antibodies’ grasp.

The researchers examined 12 antibodies isolated from people who had recovered from COVID-19 by Vir Biotechnology, a company based in San Francisco, California, that was involved in the study. Those antibodies latch on to a fragment of viral protein that binds to receptors on human cells. Many antibody therapies for SARS-CoV-2 infection grab the same protein fragment, called the receptor binding domain.

The researchers compiled a list of thousands of mutations in the binding domains of multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants. They also catalogued mutations in the binding domain on dozens of SARS-CoV-2-like coronaviruses that belong to a group called the sarbecoviruses. Finally, they assessed how all these mutations affect the 12 antibodies’ ability to stick to the binding domain.