Scientists find unique antibody from common cold infection that reacts to COVID-19

Scientists at Scripps Research Institute have discovered a special type of antibody found in both the patients who’ve had COVID-19 disease caused by coronavirus as well as common colds. The cross-reactive antibody, produced by a memory ‘B cell’ recognize SARS-CoV-2 for decades. Previous studies had suggested that nearly 20–50 percent of people that weren’t previously exposed to SARS-CoV-2 still had a T cell response against different parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute found the cross-reactive antibodies that formed memory B cells that could neutralize a range of coronaviruses, including  SARS-CoV-1, that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (ARDS). 

Earlier similarly, a research team led by Dr. Alessandro Sette and Dr. Daniela Weiskopf at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology tested blood samples of such people and had conducted similar research funded by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). It was found that the SARS-CoV-2 and “common cold” coronavirus fragments that were most similar (at least 67 percent genetic similarity) 57 percent showed cross-reactivity by memory T cells. These T cells “remembered” the initial disease threats and also produced the targeted antibodies that circulated in the bloodstream. As per the researchers, the human body’s immune system generates many antibodies whose cross-reactivity neutralizes a wider series of targets on the mutating virus for both the common cold and the coronavirus. 

“We were able to determine that this type of cross-reactive antibody is likely produced by a memory B cell that’s initially exposed to a coronavirus that causes the common cold, and is then recalled during a COVID-19 infection,” a senior author Raiees Andrabi, an investigator from the varsity’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology said. 

Antibodies 'cross-reacted' with coronaviruses

In the research published Sunday in the journal, Nature Communications researchers found that there were antibody types produced from common cold viruses that cross-reacted with benign coronaviruses as well as SARS-CoV-2. The discovery was integral for the development of a pan-coronavirus vaccine that could provide robust protection against potential coronaviruses that emerge in the future, said  Dennis Burton, Professor from the varsity in the study. “Another deadly coronavirus will likely emerge again in the future, and when it does, we want to be better prepared,” he added. Burton said in the study that the identification of a cross-reactive antibody against SARS-CoV-2 and the more common coronaviruses was one of the most promising development towards a broad-acting vaccine or therapy for humanity.