Researchers Identify 'Weak Spot' In COVID-19 Variants And The 'Master Key' To Unlock It

KEY POINTS

The emergence of COVID-19 variants makes them evasive to antibody treatments
Researchers found a vulnerability and the antibody that can neutralize it
It is effective against major COVID-19 variants, including Omicron subvariants

Researchers have found a "weak spot" across all major COVID-19 variants and the "master key" that could potentially unlock new treatments for the disease.

Our bodies naturally produce antibodies against infections, but they can also be created in a laboratory, the University of British Columbia (UBC) noted in a news release. In the case of COVID-19, however, it has been rather tricky to produce antibody treatments because the effectiveness tends to wane when new, mutated variants such as Omicron emerge.

"Antibodies attach to a virus in a very specific manner, like a key going into a lock. But when the virus mutates, the key no longer fits," study senior author Dr. Sriram Subramaniam, of UBC, said. "We've been looking for master keys — antibodies that continue to neutralize the virus even after extensive mutations."

In their new study, published Thursday in Nature Communications, researchers used cryo-electron microscopy and found a rather vulnerable spot on the spike protein called an epitope. The epitope's capabilities have been "preserved across variants," meaning that it has remained "largely unchanged" despite the mutations that the virus has gone through.

And the "master key" to this weak spot is an antibody fragment called V_H Ab6. It can neutralize "all major variants," from the earlier Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants to even the more recent BA.1 and "rapidly spreading" BA.2 Omicron subvariants.

V_H ab6 has a "unique mode of binding," the researchers said. It gets attached to the epitope on the spike protein and blocks the virus from even entering the human cells.

According to the researchers, this spike protein vulnerability can be "exploited" to create new treatments from all these circulating variants, and perhaps even from newer ones that may emerge.

"This study reveals a weak spot that is largely unchanged across variants and can be neutralized by an antibody fragment," said Dr. Subramaniam. " We can work backward from this, using intelligent design, to develop a slew of antibody treatments. Having broadly effective, variant-resistant treatments would be a game changer in the ongoing fight against COVID-19."