D. Robbiani, C. Gaebler, F. Muecksch, J. C. Lorenzi, Zijun Wang, A. Cho, M. Agudelo, C. Barnes, A. Gazumyan, Shlomo Finkin, Thomas Hägglöf, Thiago Y. Oliveira, Charlotte Viant, A. Hurley, H. Hoffmann, Katrina G Millard, R. Kost, M. Cipolla, K. Gordon, Filippo Bianchini, Spencer T Chen, V. Ramos, R. Patel, Juan P. Dizon, I. Shimeliovich, Pilar Mendoza, H. Hartweger, L. Nogueira, M. Pack, Jill Horowitz, F. Schmidt, Y. Weisblum, E. Michailidis, Alison W. Ashbrook, E. Waltari, J. Pak, Kathryn E Huey-Tubman, Nicholas Koranda, Pauline R Hoffman, A. West, C. Rice, T. Hatziioannou, P. Bjorkman, P. Bieniasz, M. Caskey, M. Nussenzweig
Nature, 2020
During the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the infection of millions of people and has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The entry of the virus into cells depends on the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2. Although there is currently no vaccine, it is likely that antibodies will be essential for protection. However, little is known about the human antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 1 – 5 . Here we report on 149 COVID-19-convalescent individuals. Plasma samples collected an average of 39 days after the onset of symptoms had variable half-maximal pseudovirus neutralizing titres; titres were less than 50 in 33% of samples, below 1,000 in 79% of samples and only 1% of samples had titres above 5,000. Antibody sequencing revealed the expansion of clones of RBD-specific memory B cells that expressed closely related antibodies in different individuals. Despite low plasma titres, antibodies to three distinct epitopes on the RBD neutralized the virus with half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC 50 values) as low as 2 ng ml −1 . In conclusion, most convalescent plasma samples obtained from individuals who recover from COVID-19 do not contain high levels of neutralizing activity. Nevertheless, rare but recurring RBD-specific antibodies with potent antiviral activity were found in all individuals tested, suggesting that a vaccine designed to elicit such antibodies could be broadly effective. Although rare, antibodies against the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 that showed potent antiviral activity were obtained from all tested convalescent individuals, suggesting that a vaccine designed to elicit such antibodies could be broadly effective.
Cited by 732 publications.
Field of study: Medicine