Rapid development of neutralizing and diagnostic SARS-COV-2 mouse monoclonal antibodies

Abstract The need for high-affinity, SARS-CoV-2-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is critical in the face of global COVID-19 pandemic, as such reagents can have important diagnostic, research, and therapeutic applications. Of greatest interest ~ 300 amino acid receptor binding domain (RBD) within S1 subunit spike protein because its key interaction with human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) present on many cell types, especially lung epithelial cells. We report here development functional characterization 29 nM-affinity mouse SARS-CoV-2 mAbs created by an accelerated immunization hybridoma screening process. Differing functions, including diverse epitopes, viral neutralization, impact RBD-hACE2 binding, immunohistochemical staining infected tissue, were correlated variable gene usage sequence.