1. Therapeutic effect of CT-P59 against SARS-CoV-2 South African variant.
- Author
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Ryu DK, Song R, Kim M, Kim YI, Kim C, Kim JI, Kwon KS, Tijsma AS, Nuijten PM, van Baalen CA, Hermanus T, Kgagudi P, Moyo-Gwete T, Moore PL, Choi YK, and Lee SY
- Subjects
- Animals, Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized immunology, Antibodies, Neutralizing immunology, Antibodies, Viral immunology, COVID-19 immunology, Disease Models, Animal, Female, Ferrets, Humans, Immunoglobulin G immunology, In Vitro Techniques, Neutralization Tests, Pandemics, South Africa, Viral Load immunology, Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized therapeutic use, Antibodies, Neutralizing therapeutic use, Antibodies, Viral therapeutic use, COVID-19 therapy, COVID-19 virology, Immunoglobulin G therapeutic use, SARS-CoV-2 genetics, SARS-CoV-2 immunology, SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity
- Abstract
The global circulation of newly emerging variants of SARS-CoV-2 is a new threat to public health due to their increased transmissibility and immune evasion. Moreover, currently available vaccines and therapeutic antibodies were shown to be less effective against new variants, in particular, the South African (SA) variant, termed 501Y.V2 or B.1.351. To assess the efficacy of the CT-P59 monoclonal antibody against the SA variant, we sought to perform as in vitro binding and neutralization assays, and in vivo animal studies. CT-P59 neutralized B.1.1.7 variant to a similar extent as to wild type virus. CT-P59 showed reduced binding affinity against a RBD (receptor binding domain) triple mutant containing mutations defining B.1.351 (K417N/E484K/N501Y) also showed reduced potency against the SA variant in live virus and pseudovirus neutralization assay systems. However, in vivo ferret challenge studies demonstrated that a therapeutic dosage of CT-P59 was able to decrease B.1.351 viral load in the upper and lower respiratory tracts, comparable to that observed for the wild type virus. Overall, although CT-P59 showed reduced in vitro neutralizing activity against the SA variant, sufficient antiviral effect in B.1.351-infected animals was confirmed with a clinical dosage of CT-P59, suggesting that CT-P59 has therapeutic potential for COVID-19 patients infected with SA variant., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2021
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