{"doi":"10.1002/jev2.12112","title":"Extracellular vesicles carry SARS‐CoV‐2 spike protein and serve as decoys for neutralizing antibodies","abstract":"In late 2019, a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, China. SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), spread rapidly and became a global pandemic in early 2020. SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is responsible for viral entry and binds to angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) on host cells, making it a major target of the immune system - particularly neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) that are induced by infection or vaccines. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small membraned particles constitutively released by cells, including virally-infected cells. EVs and viruses enclosed within lipid membranes share some characteristics: they are small, sub-micron particles and they overlap in cellular biogenesis and egress routes. Given their shared characteristics, we hypothesized that EVs released from spike-expressing cells could carry spike and serve as decoys for anti-spike nAbs, promoting viral infection. Here, using mass spectrometry and nanoscale flow cytometry (NFC) approaches, we demonstrate that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein can be incorporated into EVs. Furthermore, we show that spike-carrying EVs act as decoy targets for convalescent patient serum-derived nAbs, reducing their effectiveness in blocking viral entry. These findings have important implications for the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2 infection in vivo and highlight the complex interplay between viruses, extracellular vesicles, and the immune system that occurs during viral infections.","journal":"Journal of Extracellular Vesicles","year":2021,"id":150696,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":90,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9565,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":235113,"name":"Najwa Alhusaini","orcid":"0000-0001-6489-1285","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388794,"name":"Caroline O. Tabler","orcid":"0000-0001-9503-4673","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235114,"name":"Thomas J. Sweet","orcid":"0000-0003-1476-9059","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":640609,"name":"Karina I. Carvalho","orcid":"0000-0002-7763-8139","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250427,"name":"Daniela Schlatzer","orcid":"0000-0001-7151-594X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":324806,"name":"Lenore L. Carias","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":323750,"name":"Christopher L. King","orcid":"0000-0003-3873-7860","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":262376,"name":"Kenneth A. Matreyek","orcid":"0000-0001-9149-551X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":262178,"name":"John C. Tilton","orcid":"0000-0002-4218-5870","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":640608,"name":"Zach Troyer","orcid":"0000-0002-1821-7334","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":89,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:43:06.501849Z","pmid":"34188786","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}