A Chinese scientific research team recently published a paper online in the American journal Science, saying that it has discovered a highly effective neutralizing monoclonal antibody targeting the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which provides a new effective target for the development of new crown drugs.

Chen Wei, academician of the Academy of Military Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, is one of the corresponding authors of the paper. The researchers isolated and identified monoclonal antibodies from 10 convalescent COVID patients and found that three antibodies showed neutralizing activity against the new coronavirus, and one of them, named 4A8, showed high neutralizing ability, the paper said.

Neutralizing antibodies are a class of antibodies with protective effects produced by the body in response to antigenic stimuli. At present, many scientific research teams around the world are focusing on the receptor-binding domain of the new coronavirus spike protein in their drug design and mechanism research. In this study, the Chinese team discovered that the N-terminal domain is a new vulnerable epitope of the spike protein by identifying the N-terminal domain of the spike protein, which provides a new effective target for the design of therapeutic antibodies and other drugs.

Source: Xinhua News Agency Author: Tan Jingjing

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