Chimeric camel/human heavy-chain antibodies protect against MERS-CoV infection

Abstract

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) continues to cause outbreaks in humans as a result of spillover events from dromedaries. In contrast to humans, MERS-CoV¿exposed dromedaries develop only very mild infections and exceptionally potent virus-neutralizing antibody responses. These strong antibody responses may be caused by affinity maturation as a result of repeated exposure to the virus or by the fact that dromedaries¿ apart from conventional antibodies¿have relatively unique, heavy chain¿only antibodies (HCAbs).