PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Georgia Bullen
AU  - Jacob D. Galson
AU  - Pedro Villar
AU  - Lien Moreels
AU  - Line Ledsgaard
AU  - Giada Mattiuzzo
AU  - Gareth Hall
AU  - Emma M. Bentley
AU  - Edward W. Masters
AU  - David Tang
AU  - Sophie Millett
AU  - Danielle Tongue
AU  - Richard Brown
AU  - Ioannis Diamantopoulos
AU  - Kothai Parthiban
AU  - Claire Tebbutt
AU  - Rachael Leah
AU  - Krishna Chaitanya
AU  - Deividas Pazeraitis
AU  - Sachin B. Surade
AU  - Omodele Ashiru
AU  - Lucia Crippa
AU  - Richard Cowan
AU  - Matthew W. Bowler
AU  - Jamie I. Campbell
AU  - Wing-Yiu Jason Lee
AU  - Mark D. Carr
AU  - David Matthews
AU  - Paul Pfeffer
AU  - Simon E. Hufton
AU  - Kovilen Sawmynaden
AU  - Jane Osbourn
AU  - John McCafferty
AU  - Aneesh Karatt-Vellatt
TI  - Deep mining of early antibody response in COVID-19 patients yields potent neutralisers and reveals high level of convergence
AID  - 10.1101/2020.12.29.424711
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.12.29.424711
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/29/2020.12.29.424711.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/12/29/2020.12.29.424711.full
AB  - Passive immunisation using monoclonal antibodies will play a vital role in the fight against COVID-19. Until now, the majority of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody discovery efforts have relied on screening B cells of patients in the convalescent phase. Here, we describe deep-mining of the antibody repertoires of hospitalised COVID-19 patients using a combination of phage display technology and B cell receptor (BCR) repertoire sequencing to isolate neutralising antibodies and gain insights into the early antibody response. This comprehensive discovery approach has yielded potent neutralising antibodies with distinct mechanisms of action, including the identification of a novel non-ACE2 receptor blocking antibody that is not expected to be affected by any of the major viral variants reported. The study highlighted the presence of potent neutralising antibodies with near germline sequences within both the IgG and IgM pools at early stages of infection. Furthermore, we highlight a highly convergent antibody response with the same sequences occurring both within this study group and also within the responses described in previously published anti-SARS-CoV-2 studies.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.