Human monoclonal antibodies block the binding of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 receptor

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) newly updated situation report on March 18th, 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has confirmed 191,127 cases and claimed 7807 deaths worldwide. 1 6] Currently, there are no approved prophylactic vaccines or therapeutic drugs that are specific to COVID-19. Blocking monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), due to their extraordinary antigen specificity, are one of the best candidates for neutralizing virus infection. Therefore, identifying and cloning blocking mAbs that can specifically target surface viral proteins to block the viral entry to host cells is a very attractive approach for preventing and treating COVID-19, in particular when effective vaccines and therapeutics are unavailable in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We then sought to identify and clone blocking mAbs from the memory B cell repertoire of recently recovered COVID-19 patients to prevent the entry of COVID-19 virus to the host cells.