A review of monoclonal antibodies in COVID-19: Role in immunotherapy, vaccine development and viral detection.

The harmful COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus imposes the scientific community to develop or find conventional curative drugs, protective vaccines, or passive immune strategies rapidly and efficiently. Passive immunity is based on recovering hyper-immune plasma from convalescent patients, or monoclonal antibodies with elevated titer of neutralizing antibodies with high antiviral activity, that have potential for both treatment and prevention. In this review, we focused on researching the potentiality of monoclonal antibodies for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection. Our research review includes antibody-based immunotherapy, using human monoclonal antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 viral protein regions, specifically the spike protein regions, and using hyper-immune plasma from convalescent COVID-19 patients, in which monoclonal antibodies act as immunotherapy for the cytokine storm syndrome associated with the COVID-19 infection. In addition, we will demonstrate the role of the monoclonal antibodies in the development of candidate vaccines for SARS-CoV-2. Moreover, the recent progress of the diagnostic mouse monoclonal antibodies' role will be highlighted, as an accurate and rapid diagnostic assay, in the antigen detection of SARS-CoV-2. In brief, the monoclonal antibodies are the potential counter measures that may control SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 disease, through immunotherapy and vaccine development, as well as viral detection.

Identification of malignant cytologic criteria in pancreatobiliary brushings with corresponding positive fluorescence in situ hybridization results.

Cytologic evaluation of pancreatobiliary brushings is specific but poorly sensitive for malignancy. Detection of polysomic cells by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is significantly more sensitive than routine cytology with similar specificity. The purpose of this study was to identify cytologic criteria most associated with malignancy in specimens unaffected by sample failure. Endoscopic brushings were split equally for routine cytologic and FISH analyses per clinical practice. We retrospectively evaluated 16 cytologic criteria on Papanicolaou-stained slides. We assumed that the presence of polysomic cells by FISH indicated successful tumor sampling in specimens from patients with pathologic evidence of malignancy on follow-up. We compared cytologic criteria of malignant brushings with corresponding positive FISH results (positive control, n = 39) with those without evidence of malignancy and corresponding negative FISH results (negative control, n = 30). The presence of single abnormal cells, irregular nuclear membranes, and enlarged nuclei were independent predictors of malignancy by logistic regression (P < .05).