Science and Technology Daily News (intern reporter Du Peng) On August 4, the official Weibo of China Biopharmaceuticals announced that the research team of Sinopharm China Biotech Yang Xiaoming has recently discovered a monoclonal antibody that is effective against delta variants, with a neutralizing activity of up to 5 Ng/ml.
This means that monoclonal antibodies are effective against mutated strains of new crowns such as Delta, and the treatment of COVID-19, especially mutated strains of Delta, is expected to usher in specific drugs.
The research results have been published online in the sub-Journal of "Nature" "Cell Discovery".
At present, the clinical application of the antibody is progressing in an orderly manner, and it is expected to be used for the prevention and control of the domestic new crown epidemic.
Monoclonal antibodies, as targeted therapeutic drugs, have the characteristics of strong specificity, significant curative effect and low toxicity. They are known as "biological missiles" and have shown excellent efficacy and broad application prospects in the treatment of various diseases.
In response to viral infectious diseases, neutralizing monoclonal antibodies can specifically neutralize the virus and prevent the virus from entering the cell to multiply. It can be used as a short-term prevention for high-risk groups and can also be used for the treatment of diseases after viral infections. Therefore, it is also a hot spot in global research on the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic.
This study used phage display technology to use peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 8 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection and rehabilitation as genetic raw materials to establish an immune library and successfully screened out multiple strains with high neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 Of monoclonal antibodies.
The crystal structure analysis data shows that the RBD epitope recognized by the most active antibody 2B11 has a high overlap with the binding site of the new coronavirus cell surface receptor ACE2, which can effectively block the new coronavirus from binding to ACE2, thereby preventing it from infecting cells .
At the same time, the research team also used the hACE2-adenovirus-transduced IFNAR-/- mouse model to evaluate the preventive and therapeutic effects of 2B11 on SARS-CoV-2 infection.
The results of the study showed that, compared with the control group, the administration of 2B11 before or after the challenge could significantly reduce the weight loss and lung viral load caused by viral infection; further analysis of lung pathological tissue sections showed that the administration of 2B11 could significantly Reduce lung inflammation caused by viral infection.
Recent supplementary research results show that 2B11 has a highly consistent neutralizing activity against the delta mutant strain of the new crown virus, which indicates that 2B11 has a greater application in the short-term prevention and early treatment of new crown pneumonia caused by the delta mutant strain. value.