PROVIDENCE, R.I.— When one 49-year-old Londoner beats Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), potentially millions of people can, according to a recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
On July 27, an international team of researchers identified an antibody called LCA60. LCA60, like any good antibody, has a tendency to latch on to a virus by recognizing a distinct molecule in the harmful antigen (a virus or other infection), and tightly binding to it.
This creates a type of tag that the immune system can then use to attack the harmful invader. LCA60 is particularly adept at binding itself to the MERS virus, a trait that researchers had yet to discover in any human antibody until this July.
“Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Cronavius (MERS-CoV) causes severe respiratory disease with a high mortality rate,” wrote Davide Corti and Jincun Zhao, et. all, in their study, which was submitted to PNAS. “…Here we isolated for the first time, to our knowledge, a potent MERS-CoV neutralizing antibody from memory B-cells of an infected individual.”
MERS is a contagious and debilitating respiratory disease with a short yet fatal history. Discovered in Saudi Arabia in 2012, it is estimated that 36 percent of those who contract MERS will die, often via pneumonia-type infections.
Viral transmission is limited to direct human-to-human or human-to-animal contact—specifically through camels—but this has not culled the contagious nature of the disease.
Beginning in May of 2015, South Korea reported the largest outbreak of MERS outside of the Middle East, when the virus swept through hospitals, killing 36. Since the initial outbreak, 186 people have confirmed infection, and an additional 17,000 have been placed in quarantine.
Until recently, the most effective form of treatment had been a rather archaic one: convalescent plasma therapy, or blood transfusions from the survivors to the infected.
Although this method had not been commonly used since the early twentieth century (when the method was eclipsed by antibiotics and vaccines), it had shown degrees of success in combating SARS, where fatality rates fell 23 percent after the procedure.
The effects of blood therapy on MERS have yet to be determined, as the method has only recently resurfaced in June of 2015.
The identification of the antibody LCA60 will likely prove as a more efficient form of MERS therapy, both labor-wise and economically. Blood transfusions can cost up to $2,400 and are often wrought with many more complications, such as the transmission of Hepatitis B, C and even HIV.
The creation of a vaccine has the potential to have the same effects as a transfusion of antibodies from a survivor (basically what happens in a blood transfusion) but without the risks, which become particularly potent in developing countries, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health.
The identification of this antibody, despite the relatively high rate of death associated with MERS, is perhaps one of the most ground-breaking parts of the discovery. LCA60 was found in memory b-cells on a 49-year-old London man who was able to beat the MERS virus armed with only a particularly adept immune system in 2013.
When scientists tapped into the microbiology of this individual, they found that the individual’s B-cells had stored amounts of LCA60 in their cell memory (making them “memory b-cells), which the immune system could then use to fight MERS more effectively should the virus ever return.
When the researchers at Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Università della Svizzera Italiana in Switzerland injected MERS-infected mice with this antibody they found that for every 100 viruses counted pre-injection, only one was able to weather the LCA60 storm.
This new antibody will now open up a wide range of treatment options for MERS that had been previously unthinkable.
The memory of those B-cells has now been converted into a potential cure or even preventative measure for the MERS virus.
Antibodies are important parts of vaccine development, results like those found in at the Università della Svizzera Italiana show that LCAV60 may be the first step toward a vaccine for a virus which had no prior anti-viral treatments.
– Emma Betuel
Sources: NIH 1, Swiss Info, The Lancet, WSJ, IB Times, CDC, Yahoo, WHO, NIH 2, PNAS, Science News
Photo: Flickr