General editorial: EAJPC 8.2

This issue of the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture (EAJPC) includes a thematic section, edited by Scott Sommers, consisting of four papers dealing with various cultural ramifications of a modern popular culture in middle-class Japan, particularly in relation to gender and consumerism. It further features articles analysing the role of humour in the Sinophone world: one (by Charles Lam and Genevieve Leung) on the emergence during the 1970s of a conscious-ness of distinctive Hong Kong identity through the prism of the television sketch comedy, the Hui Brothers Show and another (by Jacob Tischer) investigating the use of a humorous social media strategy by Taiwan’s government in its attempts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. The issue concludes with a paper by Marketa Bajgerová Verly on the representation of female victims of the Sino-Japanese War in the museums of the PRC. The book reviews section features commentary on four recently published works that relate to themes discussed in the research articles. © 2022 Intellect Ltd Editorial. English language.

Potently neutralizing human antibodies that block SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding and protect animals (preprint)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major threat to global health for which there are only limited medical countermeasures, and we lack a thorough understanding of mechanisms of humoral immunity1,2. From a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting the spike (S) glycoprotein isolated from the B cells of infected subjects, we identified several mAbs that exhibited potent neutralizing activity with IC50 values as low as 0.9 or 15 ng/mL in pseudovirus or wild-type (wt) SARS-CoV-2 neutralization tests, respectively. The most potent mAbs fully block the receptor-binding domain of S (SRBD) from interacting with human ACE2. Competition-binding, structural, and functional studies allowed clustering of the mAbs into defined classes recognizing distinct epitopes within major antigenic sites on the SRBD. Electron microscopy studies revealed that these mAbs recognize distinct conformational states of trimeric S protein. Potent neutralizing mAbs recognizing unique sites, COV2-2196 and COV2-2130, bound simultaneously to S and synergistically neutralized authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus. In two murine models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, passive transfer of either COV2-2916 or COV2-2130 alone or a combination of both mAbs protected mice from severe weight loss and reduced viral burden and inflammation in the lung. These results identify protective epitopes on the SRBD and provide a structure-based framework for rational vaccine design and the selection of robust immunotherapeutic cocktails.

Rapid isolation and profiling of a diverse panel of human monoclonal antibodies targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (preprint)

Antibodies are a principal determinant of immunity for most RNA viruses and have promise to reduce infection or disease during major epidemics. The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has caused a global pandemic with millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths to date1,2. In response, we used a rapid antibody discovery platform to isolate hundreds of human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein. We stratify these mAbs into five major classes based on their reactivity to subdomains of S protein as well as their cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV. Many of these mAbs inhibit infection of authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus, with most neutralizing mAbs recognizing the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of S. This work defines sites of vulnerability on SARS-CoV-2 S and demonstrates the speed and robustness of new antibody discovery methodologies.