Jinhui Dong
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Researcher at Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to an urgent need to understand the molecular basis for immune recognition of SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) glycoprotein antigenic sites. To define the genetic and structural basis for SARS-CoV-2 neutralization, we determined the structures of two human monoclonal antibodies COV2-2196 and COV2-21301, which form the basis of the investigational antibody cocktail AZD7442, in complex with the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2. COV2-2196 forms an "aromatic cage" at the heavy/light chain interface using germline-encoded residues in complementarity determining regions (CDRs) 2 and 3 of the heavy chain and CDRs 1 and 3 of the light chain. These structural features explain why highly similar antibodies (public clonotypes) have been isolated from multiple individuals1-4. The structure of COV2-2130 reveals that an unusually long LCDR1 and HCDR3 make interactions with the opposite face of the RBD from that of COV2-2196. Using deep mutational scanning and neutralization escape selection experiments, we comprehensively mapped the critical residues of both antibodies and identified positions of concern for possible viral escape. Nonetheless, both COV2-2196 and COV2-2130 showed strong neutralizing activity against SARS-CoV-2 strain with recent variations of concern including E484K, N501Y, and D614G substitutions. These studies reveal germline-encoded antibody features enabling recognition of the RBD and demonstrate the activity of a cocktail like AZD7442 in preventing escape from emerging variant viruses.
Broadly reactive antibodies targeting the influenza A hemagglutinin (HA) head domain are thought to be rare and to require extensive somatic mutations or unusual structural features to achieve breadth against divergent HA subtypes. Here we describe common genetic and structural features of diverse human antibodies from several individuals recognizing the trimer interface (TI) of the influenza HA head, a recently identified site of vulnerability1-3. We examined the sequence of TI-reactive antibodies, determined crystal structures for TI antibody-antigen complexes, and analyzed the contact residues of the antibodies on HA to discover common genetic and structural features of TI antibodies. Our data reveal that many TI antibodies are encoded by a light chain variable gene segment incorporating a shared somatic mutation. In addition, these antibodies have a shared acidic residue in the heavy chain despite originating from diverse heavy chain variable gene segments. These studies show that the TI region of influenza HA is a major antigenic site with conserved structural features that are recognized by a common human B cell public clonotype. The canonical nature of this antibody-antigen interaction suggests that the TI epitope might serve as an important new target for structure-based vaccine design.