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Antibodies from llamas can help in fight against COVID-19, study shows

The team will now study if the antibody can protect hamsters or nonhuman primates from contracting the virus before testing it on humans
UPDATED MAY 1, 2020
(Tim Coppens)
(Tim Coppens)

The race to develop treatments against the new coronavirus has led scientists to the South American domesticated animal, llamas.

A team from the US and Belgium has developed a weapon, an antibody from llamas capable of stopping coronavirus. The researchers believe this line of treatment holds promise, especially for the elderly and frontline workers. "This is one of the first antibodies known to neutralize SARS-CoV-2," co-senior author Dr Jason McLellan, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at UT Austin, said in a press statement

Their study builds on an earlier work on Winter, four-year-old llamas growing up in Belgium's farms. In 2016, the team exposed her to SARS -- a cousin of the new coronavirus. It produced antibodies against that virus, which is coming in handy now.

The team said their work has become more relevant. “That was exciting to me because I had been working on this for years. But there wasn’t a big need for a coronavirus treatment then. Now, this can potentially have some implications, too," Daniel Wrapp, a graduate student in McLellan’s lab and co-first author of the study, said in a statement.

They believe antibodies can do a better job than vaccines. “Vaccines have to be given a month or two before infection to provide protection, McLellan, said.  But antibody therapy can not only protect people from future infections but also treat those with severe infections, he added.

The new coronavirus has infected more than 3.2 million people worldwide. More than 233,000 have died from the infection.

Winter is four years old and still living on a farm in the Belgian countryside operated by Ghent University’s Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology (Tim Coppens)

Why llamas?

A feature that makes llamas attractive is its defense system. They produce two kinds of antibodies: one that is similar to human antibodies and another that is only about a quarter of the size. The smaller ones are of specific interest because patients can use them through an inhaler or a nebulizer. “That makes them potentially really interesting as a drug for a respiratory pathogen because you’re delivering it right to the site of infection,” said Daniel Wrapp, a graduate student in McLellan’s lab and co-first author of the paper.

How does the antibody work?

After injecting Winter with the SARS virus, the team collected blood samples from her. In them, they looked for antibodies that bind to a specific protein called the spike, which helps the virus enter and infect human cells.

And one antibody showed promise: experiments showed that it binds to the spike. And when the new coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, scientists realized it was closely related to the SARS virus. When the crisis began exploding, the team turned its attention to the older SARS antibody. They thought modifying it could help it attack the new coronavirus.

So the team linked two copies of it. The resulting antibody effectively targeted the virus in human cells grown in the lab.

Going forward, the team will study if the antibody can protect hamsters or nonhuman primates from contracting the virus before testing it on humans. The goal is to develop a treatment that would help people soon after infection with the virus, they said.

The study will appear on Cell after May 5.

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