Back

Clinical grade ACE2 as a universal agent to block SARS-CoV-2 variants

Wirnsberger, G.; Monteil, V.; Eaton, B.; Postnikova, E.; Murphy, M.; Braunsfeld, B.; Crozier, I.; Kricek, F.; Niederhoefer, J.; Schwarzboeck, A.; Breid, H.; Sanchez Jimenez, A.; Bugajska-Schretter, A.; Dohnal, A.; Ruf, C.; Gugenberger, R.; Hagelkrueys, A.; Montserrat, N.; Holbrook, M.; Oostenbrink, C.; Shoemaker, R. H.; Mirazimi, A.; Penninger, J. M.

2021-09-10 molecular biology
10.1101/2021.09.10.459744 bioRxiv
Show abstract

The recent emergence of multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants has caused considerable concern due to reduced vaccine efficacy and escape from neutralizing antibody therapeutics. It is therefore paramount to develop therapeutic strategies that inhibit all known and future SARS-CoV-2 variants. Here we report that all SARS-CoV-2 variants analyzed, including variants of concern (VOC) Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, exhibit enhanced binding affinity to clinical grade and phase 2 tested recombinant human soluble ACE2 (APN01). Importantly, soluble ACE2 neutralized infection of VeroE6 cells and human lung epithelial cells by multiple VOC strains with markedly enhanced potency when compared to reference SARS-CoV-2 isolates. Effective inhibition of infections with SARS-CoV-2 variants was validated and confirmed in two independent laboratories. These data show that SARS-CoV-2 variants that have emerged around the world, including current VOC and several variants of interest, can be inhibited by soluble ACE2, providing proof of principle of a pan-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic.

Matching journals

The top 12 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.