ArticleScience advances2018
Chimeric camel/human heavy-chain antibodies protect against MERS-CoV infection.
Article in Science advances, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- Nanobodies, the potent agents to detect and treat the Coronavirus infections: A systematic review.Molecular and cellular probes · 2021Pooled it
- Camelid VHHs as a Versatile Platform for Combating Viral Infections.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- An RNA-to-RNA pipeline for rapid antiviral antibody development.Molecular therapy : the journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy · 2026Article
- Antibody kinetics and shedding dynamics of MERS-CoV in dromedary camels from different production systems in Kenya: a longitudinal cohort study.Tropical animal health and production · 2026Article
- Structural Basis of MERS-CoV Receptor Interactions and Antibody Neutralisations.Reviews in medical virology · 2026Review
- Decoding antibody response to MERS-CoV in wild dromedary camels.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Review
- Research Progress on the Application of Neutralizing Nanobodies in the Prevention and Treatment of Viral Infections.Microorganisms · 2025Review
- Article
- Unique antibodies across the animal kingdom (birds, camelids, and sharks): therapeutic potential against human respiratory viral infections.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Structure defining of ultrapotent neutralizing nanobodies against MERS-CoV with novel epitopes on receptor binding domain.PLoS pathogens · 2024Article
- Therapeutic nanobodies against SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogenic human coronaviruses.Journal of nanobiotechnology · 2024Review
- Therapeutic applications of nanobodies against SARS-CoV-2 and other viral infections: Current update.International journal of biological macromolecules · 2023Review
- The immunoglobulin A isotype of the Arabian camel (Frontiers in immunology · 2023Article
- Review
- Nanobodies: an unexplored opportunity to combat COVID-19.Journal of biomolecular structure & dynamics · 2022Article
- Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies against highly pathogenic coronaviruses.Current opinion in virology · 2022Review
- TIPICO XI: report of the first series and podcast on infectious diseases and vaccines (aTIPICO).Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2021Article
- Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) Virus-Pathophysiological Axis and the Current Treatment Strategies.AAPS PharmSciTech · 2021Review
- The role of nanotechnology in current COVID-19 outbreak.Heliyon · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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). These HCAbs are devoid of light chains and have long complementarity-determining regions with unique epitope binding properties, allowing them to recognize and bind with high affinity to epitopes not recognized by conventional antibodies. Through direct cloning and expression of the variable heavy chains (VHHs) of HCAbs from the bone marrow of MERS-CoV-infected dromedaries, we identified several MERS-CoV-specific VHHs or nanobodies. In vitro, these VHHs efficiently blocked virus entry at picomolar concentrations. The selected VHHs bind with exceptionally high affinity to the receptor binding domain of the viral spike protein. Furthermore, camel/human chimeric HCAbs-composed of the camel VHH linked to a human Fc domain lacking the CH1 exon-had an extended half-life in the serum and protected mice against a lethal MERS-CoV challenge. HCAbs represent a promising alternative strategy to develop novel interventions not only for MERS-CoV but also for other emerging pathogens.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.