Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2: current understanding, challenge and perspective

Yang Huang; Hui Sun; Hai Yu; Shaowei Li; Qingbing Zheng; Ningshao Xia

doi:10.1093/abt/tbaa028

Neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2: current understanding, challenge and perspective

Antib Ther. 2020 Dec 28;3(4):285-299. doi: 10.1093/abt/tbaa028. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Authors

Yang Huang^{1

2}, Hui Sun^{1

2}, Hai Yu^{1

2}, Shaowei Li^{1

2}, Qingbing Zheng^{1

2}, Ningshao Xia^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, National Institute of Diagnostics and Vaccine Development in Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, Fujian, China.
² National Institute of Diagnostics and Vaccine Development in Infectious Diseases, School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, Fujian, China.
³ The Research Unit of Frontier Technology of Structural Vaccinology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730, China.

Abstract

The rapid emergence of Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome 2 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) as a pandemic that presents an urgent human health crisis. Many SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) were developed with efficient therapeutic potential. NAbs-based therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2 are being expedited to preclinical and clinical studies with two antibody drugs, LY3819253 (LY-CoV555) and REGN-COV2 (REGN10933 and REGN10987), approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for treating COVID-19. In this review, we provide a systemic overview of SARS-CoV-2 specific or cross-reactive NAbs and discuss their structures, functions and neutralization mechanisms. We provide insight into how these NAbs specific recognize the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 or cross-react to other CoVs. We also summarize the challenges of NAbs therapeutics such as antibody-dependent enhancement and viral escape mutations. Such evidence is urgently needed to the development of antibody therapeutic interventions that are likely required to reduce the global burden of COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; hACE2; neutralizing antibodies; spike protein.

Publication types

Review