After the pandemic of COVID-19, neutralizing antibodies (NAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 have been developed for the prophylactic and therapeutic purposes. However, few methodologies are described in detail on how to rapidly and efficiently generate effective NAbs to SARS-CoV-2. Here, we integrated and optimized a strategically screening method for NAbs, which has enabled us to obtain SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD) specific NAbs within 6 days, followed by additional 9 days for antibody production and function analysis. Using this method, we obtained 198 specific Abs against SARS-CoV-2 RBD from the blood samples of COVID-19 convalescent patients, and 96 of them showed neutralizing activity. At least 20% of these NAbs exhibited advanced neutralizing potency and high affinity, with the top two NAbs showing half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) to block authentic SARS-CoV-2 at 9.88 and 11.13 ng/ml, respectively. Altogether, our study provides an effective methodology with high applicable value for discovering potential preventative and therapeutic NAbs for the emerging infectious diseases.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; methodology; neutralizing antibodies; receptor-binding domain (RBD); spike protein.
Copyright © 2021 Han, Wang, Li, Hu, Li, Gu, Wang, Shen, Wang, Hu, Wu, Mu, Gong, Chen, Gao, Huang, Long, Luo, Song, Long, Hao, Li, Wu, Xu, Cai, Gao, Zhang, He, Deng, Du, Nai, Wang, Xie, Qu, Huang, Tang and Jin.