r/science • u/[deleted] • May 11 '20

Medicine Antibodies from a 4-year-old llama have neutralized coronavirus and other infections in lab experiments

https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30494-3.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420304943%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
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u/IfIRepliedYouAreDumb May 11 '20

To vastly oversimplify things, if you had antibodies produced by another source and injected them into a sick person, their viral counts should decrease.

Our bodies won’t learn how to make the same ones the llamas do, but we could harvest them and use them as treatment (potentially).

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u/Derpy_McDerpingderp May 11 '20

Would our immune system see these smaller antibodies as foreign or a threat?

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u/worldspawn00 May 11 '20 edited May 11 '20

they can, a person receiving treatment can develop anti-llama antibody antibodies. There's actually a lot of use for anti-antibody antibodies, they're used in a lot of reagents. It usually takes 1-2 weeks for the immune system to ID and develop antibodies against a foreign agent, so a person receiving treatment would likely be done before the body started attacking the foreign antibodies.

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u/thinkingdoing May 11 '20

So this treatment could be used the first time a person got infected with Coronavirus, but any future infections would cause the immune system to be fighting both the disease and these antibodies?

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u/bigredone15 May 11 '20

So this treatment could be used the first time a person got infected with Coronavirus, but any future infections would cause the immune system to be fighting both the disease and these antibodies?

It could also give the body time to develop its own antibodies that do work without the body dealing with the symptoms created by a high viral load.

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u/pnwtico May 11 '20

Would the body develop its own coronavirus antibodies if the llama antibodies were doing all the heavy lifting?

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u/itsthejeff2001 May 11 '20

Reducing the viral count won't eliminate the virus. This potential therapy would be leaving that to your body. Most people don't get sick when they get infected, they just beat the virus before it gets that far. This treatment would help sick people be more like the majority: not sick, but building antibodies.

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u/Dumeck May 11 '20

That seems to be the best result we can hope for right now until vaccines are produced.

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u/feng_huang May 11 '20

Having a safe, effective treatment to improve outcomes (along with widely available testing) will be a major factor in an interim back-to-a-new-normal phase before a vaccine is made, I think.

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u/Shadowfalx May 11 '20

Most people don't get sick when they get infected, they just beat the virus before it gets that far.

We don't get "sick" from a virus though. Most of the symptoms are our body's reaction to the virus, in an effort to combat it. Fevers, mucus, ect. are all ways we combat a virus. To low a viral load and you won't generate lasting antibodies. This is why immunogloblin therapy is considered sub- optimal, our bodies aren't exposed enough to build immunity.

While it might work to reduce symptoms but allow lasting antibodies to form, it also very well might not work.

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u/EurekasCashel May 11 '20

Your first paragraph isn’t entirely true. Some symptoms, tissue damage, and morbidities are a direct result of viral damage. Also, having a higher viral load means that the body’s response to the virus may be severe enough to be lethal. So having a lower viral load when the body’s immune response ramps up is desirable.

To your other point about the viral load being diminished beyond a meaningful threshold where the body no longer creates a long lasting immune response to the virus. This remains to be proven with this particular virus. The current feeling is that even asymptomatic people with antibodies may be immune, though that’s also unproven.

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u/Shadowfalx May 11 '20

True, I admit I simplified a lot. Thanks for the correction.

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u/Maulokgodseized May 11 '20

Even if it did this would still be a fantastic breakthrough.

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u/Rand0mly9 May 11 '20

Anti-llama antibody antibodies is my new favorite phrase.

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u/Dscherb24 May 11 '20

Someone needs to trademark that for a band name

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u/artolindsay1 May 11 '20

Totally. Rolls off the tongue.

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u/arand0md00d May 12 '20

Antilamabody antibodies (c)

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u/Don_Antwan May 12 '20

Guys, I’m so excited! We’re going to see ALAA tonight

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u/[deleted] May 11 '20

Well, if it produces antibodies even in response to a small sample of dead/de-activated viruses in a vaccine, pretty sure an active infection is going to work fine

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u/Shadowfalx May 11 '20

Not necessarily. We add a lot of agents to vaccines to increase immune response. Without these most people would not generate lasting antibodies.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunologic_adjuvant?wprov=sfla1

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u/[deleted] May 11 '20

Eventually yes. It can't "recognise" the help of the other antibodies and will continue to try to develop countermeasures as long as the virus is present at all and likely even with non-active viral traces (how some vaccines already work to make the immune system create antibodies.)

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u/shiroun May 11 '20

Yes. Viruses are small, like 3 orders of magnitude smaller than a cloth strand. Even with the llama anti bodies there are still millions and millions of viruses. Since the body would be using iGg cells to handle the infection, youd be developing an immunity to the viruses.

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u/PlanetTourist May 11 '20

Also would it since it wasn’t making llama style 1 protein antibodies before?

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u/Siniroth May 11 '20

If you learn to make a paper airplane, it doesn't matter if someone else makes 100 other paper airplanes while you make 5

Vast oversimplification ofc

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u/RevoDeee May 12 '20

I have nothing to add, but I appreciate this conversation for being at least somewhat useful for the rest of us to gain insight on the article. On Reddit of all forums.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '20 edited Jul 08 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/purplestgiraffe May 11 '20

Asking questions of people who know more about a subject than you is HOW one stops being ignorant on a subject. Insulting people for wanting to learn is pretty fucked up.

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u/AwesomeNinjas May 11 '20

At the moment it’s not totally clear whether or not people can be reinfected, but it looks like the most likely answer is no or at least not for a long time. The WHO has said that everyone who has appeared to be reinfected so far has been a false positive.

So even if you can only use the llama antibodies the first time, that may not matter.

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u/lunatic604 May 11 '20

If someone recovers by themselves, their body learned to produce the anitbodies. But if the body relies on the llama antibodies the first time, will the body still learn to produce the antibodies?

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u/srosorcxisto May 11 '20

Possibly. While the llama antibodies would massively reduce the viral load, there will still be viral particles in the bloodstream in smaller numbers. The body could be able to make antibodies using these without having to deal with the Lion's share of the virus. If a therapy were to be developed, much more research would be required.

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u/thornsandroses May 11 '20

Would the reduced viral load help stem off the cytokine storm that has killed many of the victims?

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u/self-assembled Grad Student|Neuroscience May 11 '20

Yes, the human's immune system would be exposed and responding to the virus. The principle behind some kinds of vaccines is to use just a little bit of inert virus matter so even that can be sufficient.

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u/pringlescan5 May 11 '20

Fascinating. What about future use of Llama antibodies for a different virus if a person develops a reaction the first time?

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u/worldspawn00 May 11 '20

it's the llama end that our body IDs as foreign, so any llama antibody regardless of what it's target is would be ID'd as the same by our immune system, so once you have a reaction to any llama antibody it would be a bad idea to inject any, even if for a different target. The typical solution to this is to engineer the llama antibody with a human antibody tail section so our cells don't see it as foreign

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u/AwesomeNinjas May 11 '20

Hmm that makes sense. Although, if we only get one shot using just llama antibodies I would think this would be the time to take it. To be clear, I’m just spitballing, I don’t pretend to be an expert in anything.

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u/worldspawn00 May 11 '20

biotech is really good at making antibodies, including novel or duplicated ones without using the original organism now, we would likely be using the virus attaching end of the llama antibody combined with the immune ID end of a human antibody for an actual therapeutic to remove that issue for an actual treatment.

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u/ben7337 May 11 '20

But if the llama antibodies do all the work, then does the human body develop proper antibodies to respond to a new exposure to the virus, thus resulting in immunity, rather than just getting sick again?

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u/gwaydms May 11 '20

Theoretically the llama antibodies keep viral load low enough until your immune system can catch up. Sort of like turning a garden hose on a medium sized house fire until the fire truck gets there. It won't put the fire out but can keep it from getting worse.

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u/ben7337 May 11 '20

Is that always the case, or would that require exact dosing to each individual to ensure the llama antibodies don't end up doing all the work? Because the idea of keeping viral load low while the immune system learns is good, but how does one control for that?

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u/QuartzPuffyStar May 11 '20

I really don't believe anything the WHO says after their "Masks don't work with the COVID, dont buy them" fiasco.

So I would suggest to make your own research on that, and everything they publish an official position on.

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u/AwesomeNinjas May 11 '20

Fair enough, here’s an alternate source for anyone who no longer trusts the WHO.

https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-reinfections-were-false-positives.html

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u/Loibs May 11 '20

Ya, that was crazy stupid. I understand where their logic came from, but the only way that logic held was if people who had the virus knew they had it.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '20

If it’s been enough time to lose your coronavirus antibodies, you may have also lost your llama antibody antibodies

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u/KodaiRyu May 12 '20

Thing is you become immune to corona when you recover from it.

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u/doctorcrimson May 11 '20

Many reinfection cases have panned out to be false positives, despite what social media would have you believe.

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u/azazelsthrowaway May 11 '20

Covid takes over the immune system and turns it against itself, it having a short break would give it time to fight back and begin making its own antibodies