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. 2022 May;69(3):1596-1605.
doi: 10.1111/tbed.14130. Epub 2021 May 27.

Maintenance of neutralizing antibodies over ten months in convalescent SARS-CoV-2 afflicted patients

Sissy Therese Sonnleitner  1   2 , Martina Prelog  3 , Bianca Jansen  1 , Chantal Rodgarkia-Dara  4 , Sarah Gietl  1 , Carmen Maria Schönegger  1 , Stephan Koblmüller  5 , Christian Sturmbauer  5 , Wilfried Posch  2 , Giovanni Almanzar  3 , Hanna Jury  3 , Tom Loney  6 , Alexander Tichy  7 , Norbert Nowotny  6   8 , Gernot Walder  1
Affiliations

Maintenance of neutralizing antibodies over ten months in convalescent SARS-CoV-2 afflicted patients

Sissy Therese Sonnleitner et al. Transbound Emerg Dis. 2022 May.

Abstract

Knowledge of the level and duration of protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 after primary infection is of crucial importance for preventive approaches. Currently, there is a lack of evidence on the persistence of specific antibodies. We investigated the generation and maintenance of neutralizing antibodies of convalescent SARS-CoV-2-afflicted patients over a ten-month period post-primary infection using an immunofluorescence assay, a commercial chemiluminescent immunoassay and an in-house enzyme-linked neutralization assay. We present the successful application of an improved version of the plaque-reduction neutralization assay which can be analysed optometrically to simplify data interpretation. Based on the results of the enzyme-linked neutralization assay, neutralizing antibodies were maintained in 77.4% of convalescent individuals without relevant decay over ten months. Furthermore, a positive correlation between severity of infection and antibody titre was observed. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2-afflicted individuals have been proven to be able to develop and maintain neutralizing antibodies over a period of ten months after primary infection. Findings suggest long-lasting presumably protective humoral immune responses after wild-type infection.

Keywords: IgG antibodies; SARS-CoV-2; immunity; neutralization test; persistence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Development of antibody titres (a) and arbitrary units (AU/ml) (b) between patients with an asymptomatic versus a symptomatic course of disease, tested with ELNA (a) and with CLIA S1/S2 IgG (b), respectively. Whiskers are ranging from the 1st quartile (Q1) to the minimum and 3rd quartile (Q3) to the maximum. Outliers are marked as dots when lying more than 1.5× the interquartile range (Q3−A1) above Q3 or as asterisk when lying more than 3× above the Q3. The line inside the box is the 50th percentile (median). Symptomatic patients showed significantly higher AU/ml at T1 and T3 (p < .05) (Mann–Whitney U‐test)
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
2Percentages of patients with neutralizing antibodies stratified into disease severity. Neutralization activity is more pronounced in patients with more severe infections. Moderate and severe courses of disease led to neutralizing antibodies in 100% of the patients, whereas 33% and 20% of persons with an asymptomatic (asymp) course of infection did not developneutralizing antibodies. Numbers in parenthesis show the number of patients in the particular group. nAbs, Neutralizing antibodies
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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