With spillover of several coronaviruses to humans in the past few decades and continued evolution of variants, developing ‘pan-coronavirus’ antibodies and vaccines remains a high priority. To find such a broadly neutralizing antibody, Sun et al. screened the plasma from previously infected individuals for binding to the S2 region of spike from SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV, which is more conserved than the receptor-binding domain-containing S1. One sample showed cross-reactivity, also against spike proteins of seasonal CoVs. The authors then isolated a monoclonal antibody, 76E1, from this individual and showed that it neutralizes all variants of concern up to Omicron BA.1 in vitro. Furthermore, 76E1 showed therapeutic activity against SARS-CoV-2 and a phylogenetically removed seasonal coronavirus. Structural work showed that 76E1 targets a highly conserved epitope in the prefusion spike complex that is exposed during receptor binding.
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Sun, X. et al. Neutralization mechanism of a human antibody with pan-coronavirus reactivity including SARS-CoV-2. Nat. Microbiol. 7, 1063–1074 (2022)
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Hofer, U. Pan-coronavirus epitope buried in spike. Nat Rev Microbiol 20, 510 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00772-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41579-022-00772-3