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Clues to Covid-19 coronavirus’s vulnerability emerge from antibody against SARS
- godzulu 7y agoVery interesting and hopeful. There is a documentary on Netflix and one of the features docs may have another solution. https://sfist.com/2020/04/03/san-francisco-doctor-featured-in-netflix-series-says-covid-19-treatment-could-be-ready-by-september/ https://sfist.com/2020/04/03/san-francisco-doctor-featured-i...
- pazimzadeh 7y agoHaving an antibody bind the virus is good, but not enough. The antibody needs to end up activating the immune system. Sometimes antibodies binding to the virus can sometimes enhance the infection: Potential Mechanims of Age Related Severity Of COVID-19 Infection: Implications for Development of Vaccines, Convalescent Serum, and Antibody Therapies https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340005309_Potential_Mechanisms_of_Age_Related_Severity_of_COVID-19_Infection_Implications_for_Vaccine_Development_and_Convalescent_Serum_Therapy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340005309_Potential... The back fo the antibody (Fc region) to COVID needs to be conjugated with an activating factor.
- AstralStorm 7y agoIt's the light chain that binds, you can modify heavy chain to do what you need and said. This is what's done when humanizing antibodies too. The extra infection potential is when the virus or bacteria can survive or thrive inside macrophages or monocytes, which react to opsonized particles, such as with antibodies. You can make IgA or IgM instead to prevent this mechanism. They work by polymerization to bind whatever they attach to. Former is typically not activating the rest of immune system, while IgM would activate everything strongly perhaps inducing your own production.
- freetime2 7y agoWow is the least comprehensible (to me) comment I’ve ever seen on HN. Well played!
- AstralStorm 7y agoI'll try to explain below. Monoclonal antibodies, or mAb are made usually by fusing a right B cell or splicing a gene sequence for the right light chains (V, D) into a leukemic cancer cell line producing a so called hybridoma. Those cells are damaged in such a way as to produce tons of antibodies and are immortal. By using a different starter cell line you can get different antibody classes. Also by providing a different interleukin stimulus to the cells. Typically IgG is made because it's easiest, but there are options. See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022175915001246?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221... Here's a helpful blog post: https://www.tebu-bio.com/blog/2018/11/13/monoclonal-antibodies-all-you-need-to-know-about-antibody-generation/ https://www.tebu-bio.com/blog/2018/11/13/monoclonal-antibodi...
- freetime2 7y agoFascinating... thanks for the additional info!
- DoofusOfDeath 7y agoTo be fair, the first two stanzas in that post are the most poetic I've ever read on HN.
- christkv 7y agoFrom my understanding when an antibody attaches to a virus it causes a signal for T-cells to eat the and destroy the virus. So the antibody would be effective in getting the body to destroy any virus found. However I don't think it would create any sort of immune memory which is what a vaccine or recovering from the illness by yourself would do. That said it would be fantastic in that it could provide some immunity protection for a while why the antibodies are active in your body allowing health care workers to be safer. Might also be very helpful in creating firewalls in institutions like old folks homes or hospitals.
- dmix 7y agoAre there some examples of antibodies like this being employed successfully like that? I find it fascinating how the body is able to adapt to new entrants and the immune system figures out how to uniquely bind to the virus - but seemingly based on the article only when it changes into an active infection mode and exposes a certain part. Potentially ignoring it unless it’s an active threat to the body.
- AstralStorm 7y agoYes, there have been some trials in avian flu at least, and a few attempts in original SARS and MERS, with success. The problem here is the mediocre quality of evidence. Mostly limited sizes, but also lacking randomization. Also rabies, tetanus and hepatitis B and C sera are available. Those have high quality evidence for working.
- koheripbal 7y agoThis is exactly the problem. It would only work in the short term - but would not provide any immunity. It might not even eliminate the virus - so once you stop the antibody treatment - the patient might relapse. Still better than nothing and in extreme situations, it would give your body more time to produce an adaptive response.
- heurifk 7y agoHow does one isolate a specific antibody from the blood? Presumably there are thousands (millions?) of different ones in there for all kinds of pathogens.
- WhiteSage 7y agoIt sticks to a virus protein, so you can use that virus protein to find it!
- dukoid 7y agoIs synthetisizing antibodies a thing? Is it hard? If so, why?
- fabian2k 7y agoThey're far too large and complex to be synthesized from scratch, that is simply not possible. They are produced in various biological systems, with nature doing the synthesis. As far as I understand you can scale that up reasonably well with some effort.
- Symmetry 7y agoIt's too large and complex to do now but I bet we'll be able to do that sort of thing by 2040.
- est31 7y agoMaybe even by 2030 if the coronavirus causes an expansion of research. Which it'll likely do.
- woofie11 7y agoI have a friend who runs a company which genetically engineers cells to make chemicals for a living. This doesn't seem like 2040-era science fiction. Indeed, I'm not sure it's out-of-scope for 2020-era technology.
- kmlevitt 7y ago>”Despite the slightness of difference between the two coronaviruses, the antibody binds much less tightly to SARS-CoV-2 than it does to the SARS virus, and cannot neutralize SARS-CoV-2 in lab dish tests as it does SARS-CoV.” Oh.
- zippoxer 7y agoThat go me too, but to be honest the title says it like it really is.
- AstralStorm 7y agoThere are different antibodies being tested though. So there's a good chance a properly working mAb (not inducing Antibody Dependent Enhancement) will happen.
- AnotherGoodName 7y agoCan anyone chime in why we're not simply looking at antibodies from those who have now recovered?
- throwaway1777 7y agoWe are. Many avenues are being explored by different teams. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/04/03/promising-use-plasma-coronavirus-survivors-reaches-trial-stage/2945671001/ https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/04/03/promising-use...
- AnotherGoodName 7y agoYeah the real confusion for me is why even bother looking at anything other than these actual existing SAR-2 antibodies. "Hey these SARS-1 antibodies 'almost' work" Meanwhile there's literally a ton of antibodies out there that work well.
- biophetik 7y ago
- mrfusion 7y agoI never understood how animals without an adaptive immune system fight off stuff like this. Like spiders for example.
- im3w1l 7y agoIt may simply be the normal predator-prey dynamic. Even if the predator is infinitely more powerful than the prey it's not in their interest to wipe the prey out. They want to leave enough prey for tomorrow. And if there are defector predators that try to gain an edge by eating more than is sustainable, other predators will try to stop them from doing so. Now, before you object: it's not always perfectly balanced like this. Sometimes the prey does go extinct.
- sfj 7y ago> And if there are defector predators that try to gain an edge by eating more than is sustainable, other predators will try to stop them from doing so. You're talking about a virus, you know... an inert molecule.
- _0ffh 7y agoYeah, I'm not dead against a bit of language simplification by anthropomorphisation, but one needs to be wary about the mental traps it sets.
- darepublic 7y agoYe but by the same token predators don't try to consciously manage the population numbers of their prey.. rather through evolution self replicating organisms either pick up traits that helps their replicated copies be around at time point x.. or they dont. And u don't see them at time point x.
- sweetdreamerit 7y agoAn inert molecule that kills all its prey will not survive. The natural selection will favor those molecules that are able to spread without extinguishing all their guests.
- gniv 7y agoI wonder if this is why the vaccine announced from Pittsburgh [1] is effective. Sounds like they adapted a SARS vaccine candidate. [1] https://www.upmc.com/media/news/040220-falo-gambotto-sars-cov2-vaccine https://www.upmc.com/media/news/040220-falo-gambotto-sars-co...
- nojvek 7y agoWe’ve had many viral outbreaks. SARS, MERS, Zika, Swine flu, HIV etc. some of them have been with us for decades. Why don’t we have vaccines for all of them yet? Also how likely is that COVID-19 will mutate like influenza and become a seasonal deadly killer ?
- biophetik 7y agoShort answer. Money. You might like this podcast episode from planet money https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812943907/episode-977-wheres-the-vaccine https://www.npr.org/2020/03/06/812943907/episode-977-wheres-....