(Fighting against New Coronary Pneumonia) Chinese scientists have made major breakthroughs in the research of new coronavirus antibodies
China News Agency, Beijing, June 24 (Li Chunzhuang Yingna) Chinese scientists have made a major breakthrough in the research of new coronavirus antibodies. A team led by Chen Wei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a researcher at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, has discovered the first target Highly efficient neutralizing monoclonal antibody to the N-terminal domain of spike protein. This is another world-class scientific research achievement obtained after the adenovirus vector recombinant new crown vaccine developed by Chen Wei's team first entered the Phase II clinical trial in the world.
At 22 o'clock on June 22nd, Beijing time, the international top academic journal "Science" published the research results online. The first authors of the paper are Chi Xiangyang, Yan Renhong and Zhang Jun, and the corresponding authors are Chen Wei, Zhou Qiang and Li Jianmin.
At present, the epidemic of New Coronary Pneumonia is raging all over the world. The development of safe and effective vaccines and antibodies is a major challenge for scientists from various countries. Vaccines are used for the prevention of healthy people, and neutralizing antibodies are used for the specific treatment of patients. The combination of the two can prevent and cure.
Since the outbreak of New Coronary Pneumonia, Academician Chen Wei went to Wuhan for the first time and led the team to carry out emergency scientific research on pathogenic transmission variation, rapid detection technology, vaccine antibody development, etc., and achieved a series of important scientific research results.
Neutralizing antibodies are a class of antibodies with protective effects produced by the body in response to antigen stimulation. At present, the scientific design and mechanism research of new coronaviruses by various scientific research teams around the world are focused on the receptor binding domain of the new coronavirus spike protein. Chen Wei's team identified high-efficiency neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against the N-terminal domain of spike protein and found that the N-terminal domain is a new vulnerable epitope of spike protein of new coronavirus, which provides new design for therapeutic antibodies and other drugs. Effective target.
The team of Chen Wei and the team of Qiang Zhou of West Lake University used cryo-electron microscopy technology to analyze the interaction interface between antibody and spike protein with high precision, providing key information for elucidating its antiviral mechanism. The antibody can exert a high level of virus neutralization when used alone, and can also be used in combination with an antibody against the receptor binding domain as an efficient "cocktail" therapy.
It is known that this provides a powerful candidate for the treatment of new coronary pneumonia, and also provides a new idea for the design of drugs and epitope vaccines targeting the N-terminal domain of spike protein, and the mechanism of action of new coronavirus. (Finish)