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Winter the llama grabbed headlines recently for her part in generating a special type of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody. But in fact, any camelid has what it takes to create such valuable proteins, known as single-domain antibodies (sdAbs).
These tiny proteins, which only sharks and camelids (llamas, camels, and related species) are known to make, differ from the antibodies found in humans and other animals in that they’re encoded by just one gene instead of two. This makes them far easier for geneticists to work with in the lab, says virologist Paul Wichgers Schreur of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Indeed, sdAbs (also known as nanobodies, or VHHs) are being developed for a variety of applications and disease treatments, including antiviral therapies. The idea is that infected patients would be given sdAbs to bind and neutralize the virus, slowing its spread in the body.
To achieve effective virus ...
