ACE2 antibody for pan-sarbecavirus prophylaxis

Monoclonal antibodies that bind, but do not deplete or inhibit the enzymatic activity of, the host receptor ACE2 could help prevent and treat infections with sarbecoviruses including SARS-CoV-2 by blocking the receptor's interaction with the viral spike protein, with a high barrier to resistance.

A panel of human antibodies generated against the extracellular domain of ACE2 and cloned from mouse-human hybrids inhibited infection of a human kidney cell line by pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2 variants including Omicron, as well as other pseudotyped sarbecoviruses including pangolin and bat types, with IC50s in the low ng/mL range. In a non-human primate kidney cell line, four of the antibodies inhibited infection by authentic ancestral and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants, three of them with IC50s ≤100 ng/mL...