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. 2021 Nov:144:104988.
doi: 10.1016/j.jcv.2021.104988. Epub 2021 Sep 28.

Neutralizing antibody responses following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection: Dynamics and correlation with commercial serologic tests

Isabel Montesinos  1 , Hafid Dahma  2 , Fleur Wolff  3 , Nicolas Dauby  4 , Sabrina Delaunoy  2 , Magaly Wuyts  2 , Cedric Detemmerman  2 , Cecile Duterme  3 , Olivier Vandenberg  5 , Charlotte Martin  6 , Marie Hallin  7
Affiliations

Neutralizing antibody responses following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection: Dynamics and correlation with commercial serologic tests

Isabel Montesinos et al. J Clin Virol. 2021 Nov.

Abstract

The prediction of SARS-CoV-2 immunity by commercially available serologic tests will be crucial to assess the efficacy of vaccination. We used plaque reduction neutralization testing as the reference standard to evaluate the diagnostic performance of six commercial serologic tests for monitoring SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies. Euroimmun ELISA anti-spike 1 IgG, Euroimmun anti-spike 1 IgG QuantiVac ELISA, Elecsys Anti-nucleocapsid protein total antibodies, Elecsys Anti-receptor-binding domain total antibodies, VIDAS anti-spike subdomain IgG, and Microblot-Array COVID-19 IgG assay were performed on 228 sera from 89 healthcare workers who participated in a six-month seroprevalence survey. Although all immunoassays demonstrated similar performances, VIDAS SARS-CoV-2 IgG and Euroimmun QuantiVac IgG (area under the curve 0.96 and 0.95 respectively) showed the better ability to detect Nabs. Except for the Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 and the Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 S assays, the commercial serologic tests evaluated here showed a significant decrease of antibody titers in the 6-month follow-up samples. Depending on the immunoassay, 21% to 33% of the participants became seronegative, and 16.9% had a loss of neutralizing antibodies. Microblot-Array assay results showed cross-reactivity with HCoVNL63 in only one sample, and this sample showed SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing capacity. In conclusion, our results support the use of VIDAS SARS-CoV-2 IgG, Euroimmun Anti-SARS-CoV-2 ELISA IgG, Euroimmun Anti-SARS-CoV-2 QuantiVac ELISA IgG and Microblot-Array COVID-19 IgG assays to monitor neutralizing antibody response following natural SARS-CoV-2 infection. These immunoassays could facilitate the prediction of post-vaccine protection in the long term and the allocation of booster doses.

Keywords: Immunoassays; Neutralizing antibodies; SARS-CoV-2.

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Conflict of interest statement

bioMérieux has partly sponsored this study. EuroImmun (Euroimmun Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG QuantiVac ELISA) and TestLine CliniCal Diagnostics (Microblot-array COVID-19 IgG assay) have offered reagents for validation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Evolution of the 65 participants who had neutralizing antibodies and positive results at the baseline visit and at the 6-month follow-up *Overlapping lines for Euroimmun IgG and Microblot-Array NC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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