Protection against COVID-19?

WORCESTER — A new study by researchers at MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests that certain antibodies identified in the gastrointestinal tract may provide effective immunity in the respiratory system against COVID-19, which would be a potentially critical feature of an effective vaccine.

According to the medical school, Dr. Yang Wang, deputy director for product discovery at MassBiologics and associate professor of medicine, and colleagues describe the discovery and characterization of an antibody to coronavirus "spike proteins" that blocks a "receptor binding" on the mucosal tissue of the respiratory tract. 

The discovery could potentially prevent or limit the SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes COVID-19 disease.

The origins of the discovery go back 16 years, when MassBiologics developed an antibody that was effective against a similar virus, SARS (that was SARS-CoV, the first severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by a novel coronavirus), according to the medical school.

That first SARS virus caused alarming illness, but then disappeared; MassBiologics, which was ready at the time to initiate a clinical trial, saved the research materials associated with that work.

When SARS-CoV-2 was recognized and began to spread, MassBiologics researchers realized that that first antibody might help with this new infection. They launched the process of resurrecting the old SARS program, retrieving frozen cells that had been developed 16 years earlier, thawing them and determining if what worked for one novel coronavirus would work for another.

Although there was 90% similarity between the two coronaviruses, the antibody exhibited no binding to the current coronavirus. MassBiologics then evaluated another anitbody from that earlier work, which was also only weakly effective.

The medical school said Wang and her colleagues kept digging, and discussed their experience with a separate research program to develop antibodies that play a crucial role in immunity on mucosal surfaces.

MassBiologics has been investigating when the the antibodies in the gastrointestinal tract can act as a possible therapeutic to prevent gastrointestinal infections. Researchers wondered whether a similar antibody could produce passive immunity in the respiratory tract, where COVID-19 is incredibly damaging.

According to the medical school, the approach worked. 

Dr. Mark Klempner, executive vice chancellor for MassBiologics and professor of medicine, said that in nature, the antibodies coat mucosal surfaces like the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, where they are stabilized by the mucous layer on these surfaces.

There, they perform the important function of preventing binding of a pathogen to host cells, thus preventing infection, he said in a UMass Medical School press release.

MassBiologics took the results and worked with other researchers to further understand the nature of the effect of the "IgA" antibody.