Dear Editor,
As of January 31, 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than 375 million infections and over 5.6 million deaths (https://covid19.who.int), which has posed an unprecedented impact on the global economy and people’s lives. With the continuous evolution of SARS-CoV-2 giving rise to new variants, the pandemic has not slowed down at all. The variations result in a change of the infectivity and antigenicity of the virus, which leads to the continuous replacement of the epidemic strain or the co-circulation of multiple variants. In particular, some mutations enable the virus to escape immune response induced by the original strain, resulting in a decline of the protective effect of the existing vaccines and reinfection of those infected with the original strain1,2,3. This poses a greater challenge to control the pandepidemic.
Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 played an important role in the treatment of COVID-19, especially in early infection and pre-exposure prevention4. As of now, five therapeutic mAbs have been approved for the treatment of COVID-19 by the FDA and EMA. All these mAbs target the RBD region of S protein which is crucial for establishing viral infection4. However, the neutralization efficiency of many mAbs has been greatly reduced against the newly emerged variants5. Mutations in these variants may be located in the binding epitopes of mAbs, or may cause conformational changes in S proteins, resulting in changes in the accessibility of binding epitopes, affecting the neutralization of the virus.
Combination of monoclonal antibodies, the so-called cocktail therapy, has been shown to be effective, to some extent, in offsetting the reduction in neutralization efficiency caused by mutations. Another widely practiced strategy to counter mutations is to screen for conserved antibody-binding epitopes that have not been targeted as yet. In a previous study, we demonstrated a cocktail of antibodies formulated by combining antibodies targeting different epitopes in improving the range and neutralization potency of antibody therapy. At that time, the study only focused on Alpha and Beta variants, as well as some sites with higher mutation frequency6. In this work, we tested a set of 10 neutralizing mAbs again against all the current variants of concern (VOCs) and variants of interest (VOIs) using pseudotyped viruses. We found that SARS-CoV-2 variants, especially the Omicron variant, could escape neutralization by 9 of the 10 mAbs derived from humanized mice to varying degrees (Fig. 1a; Supplementary Fig. S1). Incidentally, these included antibodies that we used previously for designing a widely effective cocktail (10D12 + 7B8 + 9G11) (Supplementary Table S1). Therefore, this cocktail is likely to show reduced efficacy against Omicron. The neutralizing activity of three commercially available antibodies, LY-CoV555, REGN10987, and REGN10933, against Omicron also decreased significantly. Surprisingly, one mAb, 9A8, among the ten tested, showed high neutralizing activity against all VOCs and VOIs, with the IC50 being less than 0.1 μg/mL (Fig. 1a; Supplementary Fig. S1 and Table S2). In fact, there was no decrease in sensitivity to neutralization between different variants and the wild-type (WT) strain. To verify the broad-spectrum neutralization activity of mAb 9A8, we tested all the mAbs again against live WT as well as Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants. As observed in the pseudovirus-based assays, mAb 9A8 showed the best neutralization activity against all the live viruses tested. The IC50 value of neutralization for 9A8 against Omicron was 0.49 μg/mL, while that for the other 9 mAbs was greater than 125 μg/mL, suggesting a loss in their ability to neutralize Omicron (Fig. 1b; Supplementary Table S3). These results indicate that the epitope targeted by 9A8 is probably unique, which permitted it to efficiently neutralize the VOCs and VOIs.
To delineate the structural basis for 9A8-mediated broad neutralization, we characterized cryo-EM structures of a prefusion stabilized Omicron S trimer in complex with the 9A8 Fab fragment. Similar to previous studies, 3D classification revealed that the complex adopts two distinct conformational states, corresponding to one up RBD and two down RBDs (state 1) and two up RBDs and one down RBD (state 2) (Fig. 1c; Supplementary Fig. S2). We obtained asymmetric reconstructions at 3.4 Å and 3.6 Å resolution of the Omicron–9A8 complex in states 1 and 2, respectively (Supplementary Fig. S3; Supplementary Table S4). To improve the local resolution, we performed local refinement by using an optimized “block-based” reconstruction approach, enabling reliable analysis of the interaction interface (Supplementary Fig. S4).
9A8 binds to the apical tip of RBD, partially overlapping with the receptor-binding motif (RBM) (Fig. 1d, e). The distal tip of the RBM inserts into the cavity constructed by four complementarity-determining regions (HCDR1–3 and LCDR1), involving extensively hydrophobic interactions (Fig. 1e, f). The 9A8 epitope includes only 7 residues, forming a relatively small patch, which largely overlaps with the binding region targeted by ACE2 (Fig. 1e, f). Tight binding is achieved by a network of hydrophobic interactions formed by Y421, L455, F456 and Y489 from Omicron RBD with Y33, Y58, G101 and M106 from the heavy chain (Fig. 1g; Supplementary Table S5). Additionally, six hydrogen bonds formed by T415, Y421, R493 and H505 from RBD and S56, Y58, S53, S102, S104 and N30 from CDRs further facilitate the interactions (Fig. 1g). Of note, 7 residues comprising the epitope are mostly conserved with two single-site mutations (Q493R and Y505H) among all circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants, informing its neutralizing breadth for SARS-CoV-2 variants (Fig. 1h).
According to the previously reported classification based on binding epitopes7,8,9, mAb 9A8 belongs to class II antibodies (Supplementary Fig. S5). These antibodies are usually characterized by high binding affinities and neutralizing activities7,9. Among the 7 residues of RBD involved in binding 9A8, 5 are immunogenic hot binding residues10, including L455, F456, Y489, R493, and H505, which indicates a low probability of mutagenesis of the above five loci in variants. Except for the substitutions of Q493R and Y505H observed in Omicron or a similar mutation, Q493K, previously detected through in vitro resistance mapping efforts or in immunocompromised hosts, the other 5 loci do not appear to be mutated in any of the currently known VOCs or VOIs. More importantly, Q493R and Y505H do not affect the neutralization activity of 9A8, revealed by its comparable neutralizing activities against WT and Omicron strain. Thus, the reason underlying the highly efficient neutralization activity of mAb 9A8 against all known variants of SARS-CoV-2 lies in the nature of the epitope targeted, which is importantly conserved for most part.
The nature of the epitope has a profound impact on the potency and neutralization breadth of an antibody. The epitope targeted by mAb 9A8 seems mostly conserved, conferring two highly sought characteristics in antibodies for treating COVID-19: (i) high neutralization efficiency and (ii) broad spectrum of neutralization capable of neutralizing all known variants. Moreover, the molecular features of the 9A8 epitope unveiled in this study pose interesting targets for structure-based rational vaccine design. We have not only discovered a highly efficient broad-spectrum SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing mAb, but the structure of the mAb bound with Omicron S described in this study is instructive for structure-based vaccine design for ending the pandemic.
Data availability
The atomic coordinates of the Omicron S-trimer in complex with 9A8 (state 1 and 2) and the focused refined binding interface have been submitted to the Protein Data Bank with accession numbers: 7XXX, 7YYY and 7ZZZ, respectively. Also, their corresponding cryo-EM maps have been deposited in the Electron Microscopy Data Bank under accession codes: EMD-XXXX, EMD-YYYY and EMD-ZZZZ, respectively. Besides, all the other materials and data involved in this study will be available upon request.
Materials availability
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Y.W., X.W., or W.H.
Change history
08 December 2023
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41421-023-00619-y
References
Zhou, D. et al. Evidence of escape of SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.351 from natural and vaccine-induced sera. Cell 184, 2348–2361.e2346 (2021).
Nemet, I. et al. Third BNT162b2 vaccination neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection. N. Engl. J. Med. 386, 492–494 (2022).
Yang, Y. et al. Regular and booster vaccination with inactivated vaccines enhance the neutralizing activity against Omicron variant both in the breakthrough infections and vaccinees. J. Infect. 84, 579–613 (2022).
Tuccori, M. et al. Anti-SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing monoclonal antibodies: clinical pipeline. MAbs 12, 1854149 (2020).
Focosi, D., Maggi, F., Franchini, M., McConnell, S. & Casadevall, A. Analysis of immune escape variants from antibody-based therapeutics against COVID-19: a systematic review. Int J. Mol. Sci. 23, 29 (2021).
Nie, J. et al. Three epitope-distinct human antibodies from RenMab mice neutralize SARS-CoV-2 and cooperatively minimize the escape of mutants. Cell Discov. 7, 53 (2021).
Wang, K. et al. A third dose of inactivated vaccine augments the potency, breadth, and duration of anamnestic responses against SARS-CoV-2. medRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.02.21261735 (2021).
Hastie, K. M. et al. Defining variant-resistant epitopes targeted by SARS-CoV-2 antibodies: a global consortium study. Science 374, 472–478 (2021).
Wang, K. et al. Memory B cell repertoire from triple vaccinees against diverse SARS-CoV-2 variants. Nature 603, 919–925 (2022).
Cui, Z. et al. Structural and functional characterizations of infectivity and immune evasion of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron. Cell 185, 860–871.e813 (2022).
Nie, J. et al. Quantification of SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody by a pseudotyped virus-based assay. Nat. Protoc. 15, 3699–3715 (2020).
Gao, Q. et al. Development of an inactivated vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2. Science 369, 77–81 (2020).
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge Dr. Yuelei Shen and Dr. Yi Yang from Beijing Biocytogen Co., Ltd. for providing the mAbs. This work was supported by the General Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82172244 and 82073621), Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Project (Z211100002521018) and the Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB29010000, XDB37030000), CAS (YSBR-010), the National Key R&D Program (2020YFA0707500, 2018YFA0900801) and the Emergency Key Program of Guangzhou Laboratory (EKPG21-30-1).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Y.W., W.H., and X.W. conceived, designed, and supervised the experiments; J.N., and Z.J wrote the manuscript; S.L., Z.J., Z.L., J.X., L.W., and L.Z. performed the experiments. All of the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Liu, S., Jia, Z., Nie, J. et al. A broader neutralizing antibody against all the current VOCs and VOIs targets unique epitope of SARS-CoV-2 RBD. Cell Discov 8, 81 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41421-022-00443-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41421-022-00443-w