Structural basis for broad coronavirus neutralization.

Sauer, Maximilian M; Tortorici, M Alejandra; Park, Young-Jun; Walls, Alexandra C; Homad, Leah; Acton, Oliver J; Bowen, John E; Wang, Chunyan; Xiong, Xiaoli; de van der Schueren, Willem; Quispe, Joel; Hoffstrom, Benjamin G; Bosch, Berend-Jan; McGuire, Andrew T; Veesler, David

Three highly pathogenic β-coronaviruses have crossed the animal-to-human species barrier in the past two decades: SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. To evaluate the possibility of identifying antibodies with broad neutralizing activity, we isolated a monoclonal antibody, termed B6, that cross-reacts with eight β-coronavirus spike glycoproteins, including all five human-infecting β-coronaviruses. B6 broadly neutralizes entry of pseudotyped viruses from lineages A and C, but not from lineage B, and the latter includes SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2. Cryo-EM, X-ray crystallography and membrane fusion assays reveal that B6 binds to a conserved cryptic epitope located in the fusion machinery. The data indicate that antibody binding sterically interferes with the spike conformational changes leading to membrane fusion. Our data provide a structural framework explaining B6 cross-reactivity with β-coronaviruses from three lineages, along with a proof of concept for antibody-mediated broad coronavirus neutralization elicited through vaccination. This study unveils an unexpected target for next-generation structure-guided design of a pan-β-coronavirus vaccine.