• Davide F Robbiani, Christian Gaebler, Frauke Muecksch, Lorenzi Julio C C JCC http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2492-3961 Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA., Zijun Wang, Alice Cho, Marianna Agudelo, Christopher O Barnes, Anna Gazumyan, Shlomo Finkin, Thomas Hägglöf, Thiago Y Oliveira, Charlotte Viant, Arlene Hurley, Hans-Heinrich Hoffmann, Katrina G Millard, Rhonda G Kost, Melissa Cipolla, Kristie Gordon, Filippo Bianchini, Spencer T Chen, Victor Ramos, Roshni Patel, Juan Dizon, Irina Shimeliovich, Pilar Mendoza, Harald Hartweger, Lilian Nogueira, Maggi Pack, Jill Horowitz, Fabian Schmidt, Yiska Weisblum, Eleftherios Michailidis, Alison W Ashbrook, Eric Waltari, John E Pak, Kathryn E Huey-Tubman, Nicholas Koranda, Pauline R Hoffman, Anthony P West, Charles M Rice, Theodora Hatziioannou, Pamela J Bjorkman, Paul D Bieniasz, Marina Caskey, and Michel C Nussenzweig.
• Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA. drobbiani@irb.usi.ch.
• Nature. 2020 Aug 1; 584 (7821): 437-442.

AbstractDuring the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the infection of millions of people and has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The entry of the virus into cells depends on the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike (S) protein of SARS-CoV-2. Although there is currently no vaccine, it is likely that antibodies will be essential for protection. However, little is known about the human antibody response to SARS-CoV-21-5. Here we report on 149 COVID-19-convalescent individuals. Plasma samples collected an average of 39 days after the onset of symptoms had variable half-maximal pseudovirus neutralizing titres; titres were less than 50 in 33% of samples, below 1,000 in 79% of samples and only 1% of samples had titres above 5,000. Antibody sequencing revealed the expansion of clones of RBD-specific memory B cells that expressed closely related antibodies in different individuals. Despite low plasma titres, antibodies to three distinct epitopes on the RBD neutralized the virus with half-maximal inhibitory concentrations (IC50 values) as low as 2 ng ml-1. In conclusion, most convalescent plasma samples obtained from individuals who recover from COVID-19 do not contain high levels of neutralizing activity. Nevertheless, rare but recurring RBD-specific antibodies with potent antiviral activity were found in all individuals tested, suggesting that a vaccine designed to elicit such antibodies could be broadly effective.

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