Neutralising Antibody

Neutralising Antibody designates an antibody that binds to pathogens or toxins and blocks their biological activity, preventing infection, disease progression, or toxic effects through mechanisms including blocking viral attachment to host cells, preventing viral entry or uncoating, inhibiting toxin binding to cellular receptors, or aggregating pathogens facilitating clearance. These protective antibodies represent critical components of adaptive immune responses providing long-term immunity.

Vaccine development relies heavily on inducing robust neutralising antibody responses, with vaccine efficacy often correlating with neutralising antibody titres measured through assays testing serum ability to block pathogen infection of cultured cells. COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development extensively employed neutralising antibody measurements as primary endpoints, with variant emergence requiring assessment of cross-neutralisation. Therapeutic development involves identifying potent broadly neutralising antibodies through screening convalescent patient sera, isolating antibody-producing B cells, and producing recombinant antibodies. Challenges include viral escape through mutations altering neutralising epitopes, requiring antibody cocktails targeting multiple sites. As structural biology reveals neutralising epitopes guiding vaccine design and antibody engineering enhances potency and breadth, neutralising antibodies continue serving as vital therapeutic and preventive interventions.