Researchers have described a less expensive way to isolate and identify nanobodies derived from llamas targeting various parts of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
The findings from Rockefeller University, US, are expected to make discovering nanobodies that target SARS-CoV-2 or other viruses easier for scientists.
COVID is not yet under control and continues to mutate and elude despite a bevy of vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and antivirals.
Nanobodies can squeeze into parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that larger antibodies cannot reach. They also have unusually long shelf-lives and cost very little to mass-produce.
Llamas, belonging to the family Camelidae, naturally produce nanobodies when exposed to a virus.
Scientists have developed enormous libraries of promising SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies by giving a small dose of COVID protein to llamas.
But screening these nanobody libraries to see how well they work and which variants they work against can be time-consuming and expensive.
They used their optimised method to screen a library of nanobodies that they had previously screened with the mass spectrometry technique.
The relatively simple and low-cost procedure could empower laboratories in low-resource areas to generate nanobodies against SARS-CoV-2.
The study expects that such techniques will lower the bar for entry into nanobody research for Covid and produce therapies to prevent infection.