TY - JOUR
T1 - Functional mapping of B-cell linear epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 in COVID-19 convalescent population
AU - Yi, Zhigang
AU - Ling, Yun
AU - Zhang, Xiaonan
AU - Chen, Jieliang
AU - Hu, Kongying
AU - Wang, Yuyan
AU - Song, Wuhui
AU - Ying, Tianlei
AU - Zhang, Rong
AU - Lu, HongZhou
AU - Yuan, Zhenghong
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - ABSTRACT Pandemic SARS-CoV-2 has caused unprecedented mortalities. Vaccine is in urgent need to stop the pandemic. Despite great progresses on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development, the efficacy of the vaccines remains to be determined. Deciphering the interactions of the viral epitopes with the elicited neutralizing antibodies in convalescent population inspires the vaccine development. In this study, we devised a peptide array composed of 20-mer overlapped peptides of spike (S), membrane (M) and envelope (E) proteins, and performed a screening with 120 COVID-19 convalescent sera and 24 non-COVID-19 sera. We identified five SARS-CoV-2-specific dominant epitopes that reacted with above 40% COVID-19 convalescent sera. Of note, two peptides non-specifically interacted with most of the non-COVID-19 sera. Neutralization assay indicated that only five sera completely blocked viral infection at the dilution of 1:200. By using a peptide-compete neutralizing assay, we found that three dominant epitopes partially competed the neutralization activity of several convalescent sera, suggesting antibodies elicited by these epitopes played an important role in neutralizing viral infection. The epitopes we identified in this study may serve as vaccine candidates to elicit neutralizing antibodies in most vaccinated people or specific antigens for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
AB - ABSTRACT Pandemic SARS-CoV-2 has caused unprecedented mortalities. Vaccine is in urgent need to stop the pandemic. Despite great progresses on SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development, the efficacy of the vaccines remains to be determined. Deciphering the interactions of the viral epitopes with the elicited neutralizing antibodies in convalescent population inspires the vaccine development. In this study, we devised a peptide array composed of 20-mer overlapped peptides of spike (S), membrane (M) and envelope (E) proteins, and performed a screening with 120 COVID-19 convalescent sera and 24 non-COVID-19 sera. We identified five SARS-CoV-2-specific dominant epitopes that reacted with above 40% COVID-19 convalescent sera. Of note, two peptides non-specifically interacted with most of the non-COVID-19 sera. Neutralization assay indicated that only five sera completely blocked viral infection at the dilution of 1:200. By using a peptide-compete neutralizing assay, we found that three dominant epitopes partially competed the neutralization activity of several convalescent sera, suggesting antibodies elicited by these epitopes played an important role in neutralizing viral infection. The epitopes we identified in this study may serve as vaccine candidates to elicit neutralizing antibodies in most vaccinated people or specific antigens for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
KW - Animals
KW - Antibodies, Neutralizing/blood
KW - Antibodies, Viral/blood
KW - B-Lymphocytes/immunology
KW - Betacoronavirus/immunology
KW - COVID-19
KW - Cell Line
KW - Chlorocebus aethiops
KW - Coronavirus Infections/diagnosis
KW - Epitopes, B-Lymphocyte/immunology
KW - Humans
KW - Immunization, Passive
KW - Pandemics/prevention & control
KW - Pneumonia, Viral/diagnosis
KW - SARS-CoV-2
KW - Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/immunology
KW - Vero Cells
KW - Viral Envelope Proteins/immunology
KW - Viral Vaccines/immunology
U2 - 10.1080/22221751.2020.1815591
DO - 10.1080/22221751.2020.1815591
M3 - Article
C2 - 32844713
VL - 9
SP - 1988
EP - 1996
JO - Emerging Microbes and Infections
JF - Emerging Microbes and Infections
SN - 2222-1751
IS - 1
ER -