SARS-CoV-2 antibodies specific to the mesa and inner side of spike protein receptor binding domain maintain high affinities for both D614G and b.1.351 variants

Abstract

The COVIC-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has accumulated more than 200 million infection cases and more than 4.5 million deaths. The Spike protein on the virus surface binds to the human receptor ACE-2 for host cell entry. In an endeavor to identify novel therapeutic antibody cocktails to prevent and treat SARS-CoV-2 infections, we characterized the binding kinetics of a large panel of antibodies sourced by the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC) against hexa-proline stabilized spike protein (HexaPro) constructs, the receptor binding domain (RBD) and the N-terminal domain (NTD) subunits.