Authors
Chen, F., Nguyen, Y. T. K., Lee, Y.-Z., Giang, E., Lau, S. C., Koide, Y., Hung, S.-H., Ueno, L., He, L., Fuerst, T. R., Lauer, G. M., Stanfield, R. L., Zhu, J., Wilson, I. A., Law, M.
Abstract
The induction of potent and cross-reactive neutralizing antibody (nAb) responses remains a challenge in vaccine development against antigenically diverse viruses such as hepatitis C virus (HCV). The HCV E1E2 glycoprotein complex contains two major neutralizing sites: the neutralizing face (NF) and the less explored bridging domain (BD). Here, we characterized 25 BD-targeting nAbs isolated from infection or immunization. These antibodies arise from diverse B cell lineages but share convergent CDRH3 features. Epitope mapping by alanine scanning and negative-stain electron microscopy revealed overlapping epitopes on BD spanning antigenic regions AR4 and AR5, with variable back layer engagement. The crystal structure of a non-human primate BD nAb RM3-26 in complex with E2 uncovered a back layer-directed recognition mode analogous to that of the human nAb hcab40. Together, BD- and NF-directed nAbs exhibited additivity in their neutralization, highlighting BD as a conserved site of vulnerability on HCV and a valuable target for rational vaccine design.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 08 Nov 2025.
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