SUMMARY
Understanding the human antibody response to emerging viral pathogens is key to epidemic preparedness. As the size of the B cell response to a pathogenic virus protective antigen is undefined, we performed deep paired heavy and light chain sequencing in EBOV-GP specific memory B cells, allowing analysis of the ebolavirus-specific antibody repertoire both genetically and functionally. This approach facilitated investigation of the molecular and genetic basis for evolution of cross-reactive antibodies by elucidating germline-encoded properties of antibodies to EBOV and identification of the overlap between antibodies in the memory B-cell and serum repertoire. We identified 73 public clonotypes to EBOV, 20% of which encoded antibodies with neutralization activity and capacity to protect in vivo. This comprehensive analysis of the public and private antibody repertoire provides insight into the molecular basis of the humoral immune response to EBOV-GP, which informs vaccine design of new vaccines and improved therapeutics.
Competing Interest Statement
E.D. and B.J.D. are employees of Integral Molecular, and B.J.D.is a shareholder in that company. J.E.C. has served as a consultant for Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and Luna Biologics, is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Meissa Vaccines and is Founder of IDBiologics. The Crowe laboratory has received funding support in sponsored research agreements from AstraZeneca, IDBiologics, and Takeda. All other authors declare no competing interests.
