Visual and High-Efficiency Secretion of SARS-CoV-2 Nanobodies with Escherichia coli

Nanobodies have gained attention as potential therapeutic and diagnostic agents for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) due to their ability to bind and neutralize the virus. However, rapid, scalable, and robust production of nanobodies for SARS-CoV-2 remains a crucial challenge. In this study, we developed a visual and high-efficiency biomanufacturing method for nanobodies with Escherichia coli by fusing the super-folder green fluorescent protein (sfGFP) to the N-terminus or C-terminus of the nanobody. Several receptor-binding domain (RBD)-specific nanobodies of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S) were secreted onto the surface of E. coli cells and even into the culture medium, including Fu2, ANTE, mNb6, MR3-MR3, and n3113.1. The nanobodies secreted by E. coli retained equal activity as prior research, regardless of whether sfGFP was removed. Since some of the nanobodies bound to different regions of the RBD, we combined two nanobodies to improve the affinity. Fu2-sfGFP-ANTE was constructed to be bispecific for the RBD, and the bispecific nanobody exhibited significantly higher affinity than Fu2 (35.0-fold), ANTE (7.3-fold), and the combination of the two nanobodies (3.3-fold). Notably, Fu2-sfGFP-ANTE can be normally secreted into the culture medium and outer membrane. The novel nanobody production system enhances the efficiency of nanobody expression and streamlines the downstream purification process, enabling large-scale, cost-effective nanobody production. In addition, E. coli cells secreting the nanobodies on their surface facilitates screening and characterization of antigen-binding clones.