📄 Single-dose treatment with a humanized neutralizing antibody affords full protection of a human transgenic mouse model from lethal Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-coronavirus infection

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is continuously spreading and causing severe and fatal acute respiratory disease in humans. Prophylactic and therapeutic strategies are therefore urgently needed to control MERS-CoV infection. Here, we generated a humanized monoclonal antibody (mAb), designated hMS-1, which targeted the MERS-CoV receptor-binding domain (RBD) with high affinity. hMS-1 significantly blocked MERS-CoV RBD binding to its viral receptor, human dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (hDPP4), potently neutralized infection by a prototype MERS-CoV, and effectively cross-neutralized evolved MERS-CoV isolates through recognizing highly conserved RBD epitopes. Notably, single-dose treatment with hMS-1 completely protected hDPP4 transgenic (hDPP4-Tg) mice from lethal infection with MERS-CoV. Taken together, our data suggest that hMS-1 might be developed as an effective immunotherapeutic agent to treat patients infected with MERS-CoV, particularly in emergent cases.

keywords 🔗 syndrome coronavirus (1074) 🔗 receptor-binding domain (99) 🔗 urgently needed (40) 🔗 data suggest (146) 🔗 dipeptidyl peptidase (47) 🔗 respiratory syndrome (2004) 🔗 highly conserved (80) 🔗 acute respiratory (1734)

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