Human Monoclonal Antibodies against Highly Conserved HR1 and HR2 Domains of the SARS-CoV Spike Protein Are More Broadly Neutralizing

Elshabrawy, Hatem A.; Coughlin, Melissa M.; Baker, Susan C.; Prabhakar, Bellur S.

Immune sera from convalescent patients have been shown to be effective in the treatment of patients infected with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Virus (SARS-CoV) making passive immune therapy with human monoclonal antibodies an attractive treatment strategy for SARS. Previously, using Xenomouse (Amgen British Columbia Inc), we produced a panel of neutralizing Human monoclonal antibodies (HmAbs) that could specifically bind to the ectodomain of the SARS-CoV spike (S) glycoprotein. Some of the HmAbs were S1 domain specific, while some were not. In this study, we describe non-S1 binding neutralizing HmAbs that can specifically bind to the conserved S2 domain of the S protein. However, unlike the S1 specific HmAbs, the S2 specific HmAbs can neutralize pseudotyped viruses expressing different S proteins containing receptor binding domain sequences of various clinical isolates. These data indicate that HmAbs which bind to conserved regions of the S protein are more suitable for conferring protection against a wide range of SARS-CoV variants and have implications for generating therapeutic antibodies or subunit vaccines against other enveloped viruses.