Plant-derived single domain COVID-19 antibodies

Data show a decrease in the risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. To date, global vaccinations for SARS-CoV-2 protections are underway, but additional treatments are urgently needed to prevent and cure infection among naïve and even vaccinated people. Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies are very promising for prophylaxis and therapy of SARS-CoV-2 infections. However, traditional large-scale methods of producing such antibodies are slow, extremely expensive and possess a high risk of contamination with viruses, prions, oncogenic DNA and other pollutants. The present study is aimed at developing an approach of producing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein in plant systems which offers unique advantages, such as the lack of human and animal pathogens or bacterial toxins, relatively low-cost manufacturing, and ease of production scale-up. We selected a single N-terminal domain functional camelid-derived heavy (H)-chain antibody fragments (VHH, AKA nanobodies) targeted to receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and developed methods of their rapid production using transgenic plants and plant cell suspensions. Isolated and purified plant-derived VHH antibodies were compared with mAbs produced in traditional mammalian and bacterial expression systems. It was found that plant generated VHH using the proposed methods of transformation and purification possess the ability to bind to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein comparable to that of monoclonal antibodies derived from bacterial and mammalian cell cultures. The results of the present studies confirm the visibility of producing monoclonal single-chain antibodies with a high ability to bind the targeted COVID-19 spike protein in plant systems within a relatively shorter time span and at a lower cost when compared with traditional methods. Moreover, similar plant biotechnology approaches can be used for producing monoclonal neutralizing antibodies against other types of viruses.