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Pan-Sarbecovirus Neutralizing Antibodies in BNT162b2-Immunized SARS-CoV-1 Survivors
Chee-Wah Tan1, Wan-Ni Chia1, Barnaby E Young1
1From the Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases, Duke-NUS (National University of Singapore) Medical School (C.-W.T., W.-N.C., F.Z., B.-L.L., W.-R.S., L.-F.W.), the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (B.E.Y., T.-L.T., M.I.-C.C., Y.-S.L., D.C.L.), Tan Tock Seng Hospital (B.E.Y., M.I.-C.C., Y.-S.L., D.C.L.), Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University (B.E.Y., Y.-S.L., D.C.L.), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (Y.-S.L., D.C.L.) and Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (Y.-S.L.), National University of Singapore, and SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute (L.-F.W.) - all in Singapore.
Abstract:
Emerging severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern pose a challenge to the effectiveness of current vaccines. A vaccine that could prevent infection caused by known and future variants of concern as well as infection with pre-emergent sarbecoviruses (i.e., those with potential to cause disease in humans in the future) would be ideal. Here we provide data showing that potent cross-clade pan-sarbecovirus neutralizing antibodies are induced in survivors of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 1 (SARS-CoV-1) infection who have been immunized with the BNT162b2 messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. The antibodies are high-level and broad-spectrum, capable of neutralizing not only known variants of concern but also sarbecoviruses that have been identified in bats and pangolins and that have the potential to cause human infection. These findings show the feasibility of a pan-sarbecovirus vaccine strategy. (Funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation and National Medical Research Council.).
