Antibody Dynamics and Durability in Coronavirus Disease-19

Abstract

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (COVID)-19 has emerged as the greatest global health threat in generations. An unprecedented mobilization of researchers has generated a wealth of data on humoral responses to SARS-CoV-2 within a year of the pandemic's beginning. The rapidly developed understanding of acute-phase antibody induction and medium-term antibody durability in COVID-19 is important at an individual level to inform patient care and a population level to help predict transmission dynamics. In this brief review, we will describe the development and maintenance of antibody responses to immunization and infections generally and the specific antibody dynamics observed for COVID-19. These crucial features of the humoral response have implications for the use of antibody therapeutics against the virus and can inform the likelihood of reinfection of individuals by the virus.

Keywords: Antibodies; COVID-19; Durability; Germinal center; IgA; IgG; IgM; Plasma cells.

Fig. 1

Schematic of idealized antibody responses following infection. A solid purple line represents total antibody levels raised against a pathogen following infection, a dashed red line represents the contribution of extrafollicular SLPCs and plasmablasts and a dotted blue line the contributions of germinal center-originating LLPCs.