Abstract
The 2019–2020 winter was marked by the emergence of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) related disease (COVID-19), which started in Wuhan, China. Its high human-to-human transmission ability led to a worldwide spread within few weeks and has caused substantial human loss. Mechanical antiviral control approach, drug repositioning, and use of COVID-19 convalescent plasmas (CPs) were the first line strategies utilized to mitigate the viral spread, yet insufficient. The urgent need to contain this deadly pandemic has led searchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines. However, not all vaccines manufactured are safe. Besides, an alternative and effective treatment option for such an infectious disease would include pure anti-viral neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (NmAbs), which can block the virus at specific molecular targets from entering cells by inhibiting virus-cell structural complex formation, with more safety and efficiency than the CP. Indeed, there is a lot of molecular evidence about the protector effect and the use of molecular feature-based NmAbs as promising therapeutics to contain COVID-19. Thus, from the scientific publication database screening, we here retrieved antibody-related papers and summarized the repertory of characterized NmAbs against SARS-CoV-2, their molecular neutralization mechanisms, and their immunotherapeutic pros and cons. About 500 anti-SARS-CoV-2 NmAbs, characterized through competitive binding assays and neutralization efficacy, were reported at the writing time (January 2021). All NmAbs bind respectively to SARS-CoV-2 S and exhibit high molecular neutralizing effects against wild-type and/or pseudotyped virus. Overall, we defined six NmAb groups blocking SARS-CoV-2 through different molecular neutralization mechanisms, from which five potential neutralization sites on SARS-CoV-2 S protein are described. Therefore, more efforts are needed to develop NmAbs-based cocktails to mitigate COVID-19.
Highlights
At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus-associated disease (COVID-19, previously 2019-nCoV), caused by an emergent coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (Zhu N. et al, 2020; Wu F. et al, 2020), plunged the world into dread and the scientific community to focus on the means to contain this virus
In this review, based on their structural/molecular characteristics, we summarize the specific neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (NmAbs) reported so far with the ability to block and protect against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2 and their mechanisms of action at respective virus inhibition target sites
Among the SARS-CoV-2–specific NmAbs, the full antibodies obtained from human sources (COVID-19 infected or convalescent patients) account for more than 70% of reported antibodies, and most of them were obtained from enriched sorted PBMCs (Table 3)
Summary
At the end of 2019, a novel coronavirus-associated disease (COVID-19, previously 2019-nCoV), caused by an emergent coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) (Zhu N. et al, 2020; Wu F. et al, 2020), plunged the world into dread and the scientific community to focus on the means to contain this virus. Belonging to the subgenus sarbecovirus, the Orthocoronavirinae subfamily, SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh member of the Coronaviridae’s family, which is transmitted through direct contacts with confirmed and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients, and that commonly causes fever, cough with chest tightness, respiratory distress, or dyspnea, myalgia and asthenia along with dizziness. Ground-glass opacity and patchy shadows with bilateral lesions in computed tomography analysis results, reduction in the lymphocytes accounts, and increase in C-reactive protein (CRP) accounts constitute the typical biological characteristic of COVID-19 (Li C. et al, 2020; Wu F. et al, 2020; Zhu N. et al, 2020)
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