{"doi":"10.1038/s41598-021-84840-3","title":"Blockade of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein-mediated cell–cell fusion using COVID-19 convalescent plasma","abstract":"The recent COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious threat to global public health, thus there is an urgent need to define the molecular mechanisms involved in SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein-mediated virus entry that is essential for preventing and/or treating this emerging infectious disease. In this study, we examined the blocking activity of human COVID-19 convalescent plasma by cell-cell fusion assays using SARS-CoV-2-S-transfected 293 T as effector cells and ACE2-expressing 293 T as target cells. We demonstrate that the SARS-CoV-2 S protein exhibits a very high capacity for membrane fusion and is efficient in mediating virus fusion and entry into target cells. Importantly, we find that COVID-19 convalescent plasma with high titers of IgG neutralizing antibodies can block cell-cell fusion and virus entry by interfering with the SARS-CoV-2-S/ACE2 or SARS-CoV-S/ACE2 interactions. These findings suggest that COVID-19 convalescent plasma may not only inhibit SARS-CoV-2-S but also cross-neutralize SARS-CoV-S-mediated membrane fusion and virus entry, supporting its potential as a preventive and/or therapeutic agent against SARS-CoV-2 as well as other SARS-CoV infections.","journal":"Scientific Reports","year":2021,"id":167747,"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":31,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9646,"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":336312,"name":"Juan Zhao","orcid":"0000-0002-1809-3124","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336316,"name":"Lam Nhat Nguyen","orcid":"0000-0002-8419-8354","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":652466,"name":"James L. Adkins","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336311,"name":"Madison Schank","orcid":"0000-0001-9017-3180","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336317,"name":"Sushant Khanal","orcid":"0000-0001-8028-6034","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338131,"name":"Xindi Dang","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336315,"name":"Dechao Cao","orcid":"0000-0001-5038-1807","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336318,"name":"Bal Krishna Chand Thakuri","orcid":"0000-0003-3768-279X","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":651398,"name":"Zeyuan Lu","orcid":"0000-0002-3002-9723","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":482838,"name":"Jinyu Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-9200-5348","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":105589,"name":"Yi Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-8228-2560","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338133,"name":"Xiao Y. Wu","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":338135,"name":"Mohamed El Gazzar","orcid":null,"position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336322,"name":"Shunbin Ning","orcid":"0000-0001-5484-5779","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336323,"name":"Jonathan P. Moorman","orcid":"0000-0002-6102-6541","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":336324,"name":"Zhi Q. Yao","orcid":"0000-0002-1848-1071","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":695492,"name":"Ling Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-5176-7469","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":63,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:45:58.359801Z","pmid":"33692386","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":[]}